Mexico City is one of the world’s biggest oil producers and it’s in a serious crisis. The city’s gas stations are diminishing in its gas availability for public consumption. Mexican citizens are waiting in long lines at gas stations and they are in desperate need of fuel. Some states are even halting public transportation because of the lack of gasoline. These fuel shortages are occurring due to fuel theft. The government and Public resident Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador are urging the public not to panic and they are promising that this crisis will soon be resolved.

For many years Mexico has lost billions of dollars from the effect of fuel theft. For example; last year, Mexico lost 60,000 barrels of fuel. These Mexican fuel thieves were nicknamed Huachicoleros. The Huachicoleros hacked multiple pipelines every night and stole the fuel. Pemex is a major oil company in Mexico and some of its employees helped the Huachicoleros to drain these pipelines. President Lopez Obrador is desperately trying to find a solution for this problem and has decided to use trucks escorted by soldiers to transport the fuel. Even though this method takes some time, more fuel will be available to citizens and more adults will be able to pick up their children from school and go to work.

In several states, such as Guanajuato and Michoacán, more than fifty percent of gas stations closed and multiple public buses are out of operation. In Querétaro and in Jalisco, there are supply problems that are negatively affecting the productivity of production plants. President López Obrador states that “there is enough gasoline in the country, but we cannot use the pipelines because there are networks that were created to steal gasoline.” With this statement, he explains that it’s difficult to find a pipeline that wasn’t used for theft. He has informed the country that there is available gasoline but it’ll be difficult to obtain it. This fuel theft occurrence is bringing more stress and anxiety to the people in these states because on January 18th, there were at least 73 people dead from an illegally-taped gasoline pipeline.  This is Obrador’s first crisis as president and he is doing all he can to help the country regain stability and rid the nation of fuel theft.