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Mexico's Pemex Sues BASF, Others Over Stolen Oil
 Robert Campbell - Reuters
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June 08, 2010
Mexico City - Pemex, Mexico's state oil company, sued German chemical maker BASF AG and several oil trading companies on Monday, alleging they illegally profited from processing stolen oil.
The suit seeks to recover payments BASF made to several trading companies for deliveries of condensate, a mixture of very light, liquid hydrocarbons extracted from natural gas fields that is processed in petrochemical plants.
BASF, which operates a large petrochemical plant in Port Arthur, Texas, allegedly purchased at least $2.4 million worth of stolen condensate from other defendants named in the suit.
Pemex does not say that BASF knew the condensate was stolen when it was purchased.
The suit stems from an ongoing U.S. investigation into the trafficking of stolen Mexican condensate that started last year.
Frank Zeller, a spokesman for BASF's North American operations, declined to comment on the suit, saying the company had not yet been able to review it.
"We were not aware this was stolen material when we acquired it," Zeller said, adding BASF had been working with the relevant authorities since the investigation began.
Several people in the case, including top executives at some of the small trading firms that Pemex said had direct knowledge of the smuggling of stolen condensate, have already pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges.
These include Donald Schroeder, president of Trammo Petroleum; Arnoldo Maldonado, president of Ygriega Energy Co; Jonathan Dappen, an "authorized agent" of Petro Salum; and Stephen Pechenick, president of Valley Fuels.
Tapping into Pemex's pipelines to steal gasoline, diesel and even jet fuel has generated hundreds of millions of dollars of profits for Mexican criminals for years, but organized gangs working with corrupt Pemex staff have begun stealing condensate and even crude oil in recent years.
An estimated $300 million in condensate has been stolen since 2006, Pemex said in its lawsuit. At times thefts have approached 40 percent of the condensate produced at its Burgos gas fields in northeastern Mexico, Pemex said.
(Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Richard Chang)
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