will have to look for its 

 oil supplies to those re- 

 gions where inaccessi- 

 bilities and lack of de- 

 mand, due to the social 

 and industrial backward- 

 ness of the peoples, have 

 hitherto retarded ex- 

 ploration and production. 



how Mexico's oil has 

 been exploited 



The rapidity with 

 which a region of rela- 

 tively recent develop- 

 ment may be exploited 

 is illustrated in Mexico, 

 whose petroleum output 

 has risen since 191 until 

 it is second only to the 

 United States, having 

 doubled in the last five 

 years. Mexico has been 

 a land of oil-gushers and 

 big wells, and with less 

 than 300 producing wells 

 the potential daily pro- 

 duction has been esti- 

 mated as about one and 

 a half million barrels, 

 but the actual output is 

 not much more than 10 

 per cent of that. 



The increases in pro- 

 duction in the United 

 States and Mexico for 

 the year 191 8, as com- 

 pared with 191 7, are re- 

 spectively twenty mil- 

 lion and eight million 

 barrels. This shows how 

 large a responsibility for 

 the world's oil supply 

 Mexico is already assuming. 



What is to happen when, following the 

 United States, Mexico must reduce her 

 output with the progressive exhaustion 

 of her oil resources, and what are to be 

 the competitive conditions in the United 

 States when the other great nations of 

 the world, whose use of petroleum is now 

 relatively insignificant, awaken to the 

 realization of the unique and almost 

 priceless advantages of this great natural 

 resource ? 



The United States, though the largest 

 producer and consumer of oil, has given 



Photograph from Mexican Petroleum Co. 



THE CERRO AZUL NO. 4 IN FULL FORCE 



The great volume of gas and oil completely wrecked the der- 

 rick, and in the first blast of gas threw the 2-ton drill-bit high in 

 the air, landing 125 feet from the well and within three yards of 

 a "movie" photographer. Photographing a wild well is not with- 

 out discomfort and danger. 



too little heed to the future ; Great Brit- 

 ain, almost the smallest producer, has 

 been the first to foresee petroleum's 

 "transcendental importance to the world's 

 industrial future," and, following up vis- 

 ion with action, has been the most active 

 in providing for that future. 



Britain's method of controlling oil 

 supplies 



Sidney Brooks's phrase, "commercial 

 statesmanship," may be the transatlantic 

 term for "dollar diplomacy," but it aptly 

 describes the British method of seeking: 



197 



