Plans afoot for several mini-refineries in Mexico

 Mexico's geography in the Press, Updates to Geo-Mexico  Comments Off on Plans afoot for several mini-refineries in Mexico
Aug 292016
 

State-owned Pemex currently has six oil refineries in Mexico, which process around 1.05 million barrels/day (b/d) of crude.

The company has now shelved plans to add a $10-billion refinery at Tula (Hidalgo) owing to doubts about its long-term viability. It does seem that it is unlikely to be needed since Mexico’s energy reforms have led to several private companies submitting proposals to build less expensive, modular “mini-refineries” in Mexico. Each of these mini-refineries is 80-90% smaller than any of the six giant Pemex refineries.

Planned new refineries. Credit: El Economista / Refmex.com.mx

Planned new refineries. Credit: El Economista / Refmex.com.mx

A consortium of U.S. firms, Refinerías Unidas de México (Refmex), plans to invest 11.6 billion dollars to build 9 mini-refineries, starting with a $1.5billion refinery in Campeche with the capacity to refine between 40,000 and 60,000 b/d. Construction would take between 18 and 30 months.

Other proposed locations (map) include Cadereyta (Nuevo León), Dos Bocas (Tabasco), Minatitlán (Veracruz), Lázaro Cárdenas (Michoacán), Manzanillo (Colima), Salina Cruz (Oaxaca), Tula (Hidalgo) and Tuxpan (Veracruz). Several of these locations are in the recently announced federal Special Economic Zones, which offer fiscal incentives to investors.

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Video of the Sea of Cortés (Gulf of California)

 Books and resources  Comments Off on Video of the Sea of Cortés (Gulf of California)
Aug 232016
 

This PostandFly video explores the islands of San Jose, San Francisco and Espiritu Santo. The Sea of Cortés (Gulf of California) is the body of water that separates the Baja California Peninsula from the Mexican mainland. The Sea of Cortés is thought to be one of the most diverse seas on the planet, and is home to more than 5,000 species of micro-invertebrates. A large part of the Sea of Cortés is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Several rivers feed the Sea of Cortés, including the Colorado, Fuerte and Yaqui. The Sea of Cortés has more than 300 estuaries and other wetlands on its shores, of which the delta of the Colorado River is especially important. The vast reduction in the Colorado’s flow has negatively impacted wetlands and fisheries.

Previous Geo-Mexico posts on this area of Mexico include:

Mexico City declares public markets to be Intangible Cultural Heritage

 Other  Comments Off on Mexico City declares public markets to be Intangible Cultural Heritage
Aug 222016
 

Mexico has some of the finest markets in the world. The variety of produce and other items sold in markets is staggering. But not all Mexican markets are the same. The two major groups are the permanent markets (mercados), usually housed in a purpose-built structure and open for business every day, and the street market or tianguis, usually held once a week.

Earlier this month, Mexico City passed legislation that gave the city’s 329 public markets Intangible Cultural Heritage status, and provided additional funding to ensure that their traditional activities are maintained for future generations.

Some of the markets are traditional, mixed markets, others are specialized. Between them, they are used on a regular basis by almost half of Mexico City’s residents and provide more than 280,000 jobs. The Mexico City commission established to preserve these traditional spaces and their practices has been allocated a budget in 2017 of $200,000,000 pesos (about $11 million).

Abelardo L. Rodriguez Market. Credit: Wikimedia. Creative Commons.

Abelardo L. Rodriguez Market. Credit: Wikimedia. Creative Commons.

Beyond their regular role as a trading place, many of the markets in Mexico City have additional claims to fame. For example the La Paz market in Tlalpan in the southern part of the city occupies an architecturally impressive building, while the Abelardo L. Rodríguez market in the downtown area has fine decorative murals painted by students of Diego Rivera.

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Mexico’s tourism logo: the basis for colored tourism signs

 Other  3 Responses »
Aug 182016
 

Despite having seen this tourist promotion logo thousands of times, I had never thought about its colors and their significance until recently.

mexico tourism logoIt turns out that the colors (despite what you may see on your monitor) are actually meant to be:

  • M – brown = archaeology and archaeological sites (historical tourism)
  • é – pink = health and well-being (including medical tourism)
  • x – yellow = culture (cultural tourism)
  • i – purple = meetings (seminars and conference tourism)
  • c – green = nature (adventure tourism and ecotourism)
  • o – blue = sea, sun and sand (beach and resort tourism)

The federal Tourism Secretariat is planning a nationwide overhaul of tourism signage on major highways taking advantage of these colors. It will install new, standardized signs using these six colors as a quick means of identifying the kind of tourist attraction at each location of interest. The program has funding of almost $10 million, and the first states to have the new signs will be Chiapas, Durango, Guanajuato, Hidalgo, Jalisco, Michoacán, Puebla, Tabasco, Tlaxcala and Veracruz.

Whether or not using six different colors is actually more effective than six distinct symbols on the same color background remains to be seen.

In the first half of this year, Mexico received 17,000,000 international tourists, 8.6% more than for the corresponding period in 2015, with expenditures by tourists rising 8% to $10.063 billion.

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Mexico rises to 2nd on Happy Planet Index

 Updates to Geo-Mexico  2 Responses »
Aug 152016
 

Avid Geo-Mexico readers will know that we included a few paragraphs about the Happy Planet Index in our 2010 book, which we later quoted in this 2013 post, Mexico and the Happy Planet Index.

The latest (2016) Happy Planet Index (HPI), which uses slightly modified criteria, shows that Mexico has risen to 2nd place in the world rankings, behind Costa Rica, but ahead of Colombia, Vanuatu and Vietnam and well ahead of the U.S. (#108) and Canada (#85).

The Happy Planet Index is a compound index that combines four measures:

  • life expectancy
  • well being (life satisfaction)
  • ecological footprint
  • inequality

The HPI looked at data for 140 countries. For life expectancy, Mexico ranked #39, for well being #11, for ecological footprint #77 and for inequality #60.

Global pattern of ecological footprint. Source: HPI report, 2016.

Global pattern of ecological footprint. Source: HPI report, 2016.

The world map for ecological footprint shows the global pattern. The colors show three categories for ecological footprints, those below 1.7, those between 1.7 and 3.5 and those that exceed 3.5, where the numbers are global hectares (gha) per person.

These two sections from the Happy Planet Index country report for Mexico are a useful snapshot of where Mexico stands right now:

What’s working well in Mexico?

In recent years, massive steps have been taken to improve the health of the population of Mexico – notably achieving universal health coverage in 2012, making essential health services available to the entire population.

In 2014, a tax was imposed on sugary drinks with the express aim of tackling of obesity – this despite strong corporate opposition. The tax had already led to a 12% decrease in the consumption of such drinks by the end of the year.

Environmental sustainability is receiving growing political attention, and was included as one of five key pillars in Mexico’s National Development Plan for 2007–12. Mexico was the second country in the world to incorporate long-term climate targets into national legislation, and is taking important steps to conserve its forests and protect its rich biodiversity.

What could be improved?

Significant challenges remain for Mexico: economic inequality is a massive problem with a considerable gap between the richest and poorest – the top 20% of the population earns more than thirteen times as much as the bottom 20% of the population.

Mexico’s poverty rates are particularly high among indigenous people. Amnesty International has  highlighted Mexico’s human rights violations, especially relating to irregular migrants. On top of these issues, the importance of the oil industry to Mexico’s economy complicates its environmental efforts.

Mexico recently reached cross-party agreement on the Pacto por Mexico, a pact of 95 initiatives aiming to tackle some of these issues – an important step for the country’s future.

The HPI attempts to quantify an alternative vision of progress where people strive for happy and healthy lives alongside ecological efficiency in how they use resources. Mexico may have a high happiness index, but (like the rest of the world) it still has an awful long way to go to ensure a sustainable future for our grandchildren.

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Which states grew fastest in 2015?

 Updates to Geo-Mexico  Comments Off on Which states grew fastest in 2015?
Aug 112016
 

The map shows the percentage change in each state’s GDP during 2015. (Data from the National Statistics Agency, INEGI).

Change in GDP, by state, 2014-2015. Data: INEGI. Cartography: Tony Burton / Geo-Mexico

Change in GDP, by state, 2014-2015. Data: INEGI. Cartography: Tony Burton / Geo-Mexico

The fastest growing states in 2015 were Hidalgo (6.3%), Chihuahua (6.2%) and Nuevo León (5.9%).

While the economy of most northern Mexico states grew at a respectable rate during 2015, the economies of three Gulf coast states actually shrank last year, mainly owing to the drop in oil prices. GDP fell in three oil-rich states: Campeche (- 8.2%), Veracruz (- 2.3%) and Tabasco (- 0.2%).

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The continuing revitalization of Acapulco

 Mexico's geography in the Press  Comments Off on The continuing revitalization of Acapulco
Aug 082016
 

Acapulco is busy re-invigorating its tourist industry. In recent months, we’ve looked at the city’s improved public transit system known as Acabús and reported the news that Acapulco International Airport is getting a new, state-of-the-art, 18,800-square feet terminal building. The airport’s operator, Grupo Aeroportuario del Centro-Norte (GACN) says the 30-million-dollar terminal will be capable of handling 1.3 million passengers a year.

acapulco-bay-prob-public-domain

Now, Mexican firm Mundo Imperial, the tourist division of the vehicle financing firm Grupo Autofin, has announced a 1-billion-dollar Master Plan to help revitalize Acapulco, Mexico’s first jet set resort.

The plan aims to return the city to its former glory days by renovating the famed Mundo Imperial, Fairmont Princess and Pierre Marqués hotels, and adding several smaller boutique hotels and a medical center, as well as up-market homes and a high-end shopping plaza.

The project also includes an additional 700-room hotel, new tennis stadium, a hospitality training facility and an eco-adventure park. The plan, which will create around 10,000 jobs in total, will take five years to complete.

According to tourism officials, Acapulco’s reactivation as a tourist center is well under way. They claim that the port resort will host more than 40 major conferences this year, and that the city will be a port-of-call for more than 30 U.S. cruise ships.

Next year, Acapulco will once again host Mexico’s massive annual Tourism Fair, the Tianguis Turístico.

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Index page: Mexico’s indigenous peoples

 Index page, Other  Comments Off on Index page: Mexico’s indigenous peoples
Aug 042016
 

As the site continues to grow, in content and readership, we are adding the occasional index page to help new readers find articles of interest. According to the 2010 census, 6,000,000 Mexicans over the age of five speak at least one indigenous language. Another 3,000,000 Mexicans consider themselves indigenous but no longer speak any indigenous language.

General

Specific groups

Maya

Aztec / Mexica

Tohono O’odham

Huichol

Tarahumara

Other Geo-Mexico index pages:

The pattern of household incomes in Mexico, 2015

 Maps, Updates to Geo-Mexico  6 Responses »
Aug 012016
 

The National Statistics Agency’s (INEGI’s) 2015 Survey of Socioeconomic Conditions includes data for average household incomes in Mexico, on a state-by-state basis. The national average household income (for a three month period) is $45,887 (pesos) . The map below shows how each state’s average household income compares to the national average.

Household income, by state, 2015. Data: INEGI. Cartography: Tony Burton / Geo-Mexico; all rights reserved

Household income, by state, 2015. Data: INEGI. Cartography: Tony Burton / Geo-Mexico

The state with the highest household income is Nuevo León, with $66,836, more than 140% of the national average. The state with the lowest household income is Guerrero ($27,584), where the average household income is only 60.1% of the national average. Guerrero’s average household income is only 41% of the average for Nuevo León.

As we have regularly highlighted in the past, regional differences in Mexico are considerable, and a definite “north-south divide”can be identified for almost every socio-economic variable. Development efforts need to be focused on improving the key indicators for southern Mexico and reducing these regional disparities.

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