Because nothing says “transparency” like a budget black hole
In a turn that has left everyone *absolutely surprised*, the Mexican Alliance against Fracking has had the audacity to point out what we all see but few of us name: the federal government is playing hide and seek with the public resources destined to continue fracturing the national subsoil. It seems that the slogan is: “if we don’t publish it, it doesn’t exist.” A bold strategy, without a doubt, to manage the finances of a nation.
The star plot of this bureaucratic melodrama is as transparent as drilling mud. It turns out that, according to these spoilers from the Alliance, “this year opacity predominates in the resource assigned to the State public company (Pemex)”. Wow, wow. Who would have imagined it: a state hydrocarbon company being opaque. It’s like discovering that water is wet or that the sun is hot. The most comical thing – or tragic, depending on your sense of humor – is that this financial darkness coincidentally coincides with the disappearance of the subsidiary Pemex Exploration and Production (PEP), in that nice legislative “traffic accident” that was the constitutional reform of October 2024. What a coincidence.
The art of making a budget disappear
The situation is as clear as unrefined crude oil. To date, the Federal Expenditure Budget Project 2026 is conspicuous by the absence of specific amounts for each investment project in the hydrocarbon sector. In particular, those involved in the extraction of gas through the wonderful technique of hydraulic fracturing – or fracking for friends – have decided to take a permanent vacation from official documents. Could it be that these projects are so shy that they don’t want to go out in public?
And here comes the best: when the federal government published the budget in September 2025, EL UNIVERSAL, in a fit of journalistic ingenuity, had the idea of asking Petróleos Mexicanos and the Secretaría de Hacienda for that detailed information that was conspicuous by its absence. The response was a monumental… silence. Neither the agency nor the oil company shared information or, at least, a creative argument about why they omitted to publish said document. Maybe they were too busy counting money to come up with an excuse.
Pemex: the jewel in the crown that costs more than health and the environment combined
Let’s get our calculators ready for a lesson in government arithmetic. In PPEF 2026, the total resource for Pemex amounts to the modest sum of 517 thousand 362.1 million pesos. An amount so large that it requires taking a deep breath before saying it. This figure represents, with a mathematical elegance that borders on the poetic:
About 12 times the budget granted to the Secretary of the Environment. Because, let’s be honest, what is more important: a few trees and animals or sacred oil?
Almost 8 times the budget allocated to Health. Clearly, barrels of crude oil are more vital to the nation than hospitals and medicines. Priorities, gentlemen.
And, if that were not enough, twice more than that assigned to the Secretariat of Energy. This is especially ironic, considering that Pemex is technically part of the energy sector. A perfect metaphor for the dog that eats its owner.
Meanwhile, the Alliance against Fracking insists on breaking with what they call “the narrative of considering gas as a ‘transition fuel'”. They propose, in a burst of idealism, that the Mexican government should fulfill its promises to ban fracking and move towards an energy policy based on efficiency and reduction of consumption. What a radical idea: keep what you promise.
His proposal sounds like heavenly music in the midst of this concert of absurdities: “a true fair and sustainable energy transition, respectful of human rights and that responds in a timely manner to the climate and environmental crisis that affects more and more regions of the country”. Beautiful, right? Too bad it competes with the sound of drilling machines and the irresistible siren song of oil revenues.
The finishing touch: direct assignments
To top off this spectacle, the Alliance informs us that the Secretary of Energy is going to channel practically all of its budget through direct allocations within the Hydrocarbon Policy Articulation program. In case anyone is not familiar with the term, “direct allocations” is that lovely modality where annoying bidding procedures and transparency are avoided. It is the bureaucratic equivalent of delivering the money in a sealed envelope. Efficient, without a doubt. Transparent? Well, that’s another story.
In short, we are faced with a masterpiece of opaque management: budgets that disappear, agencies that remain eloquently silent, and a state company that devours resources while the health and environmental areas juggle with the crumbs. All this while insisting on promoting an extraction technique that they officially say they reject. Because in the grand theater of Mexican energy policy, coherence is as elusive as budget details for fracking.
Did you like this tour of the wonders of budget opacity?Share this article on your social networks and help more people learn about this juicy drama between public resources and hydraulic fracturing.Do you want to explore more content on how natural resources are managed (or hidden) in our country?Visit our energy and environment section for more analyzes as ironically revealing as this one.
