Villahermosa, Tab.—In the Villahermosa-Cárdenas highway There are several empty industrial warehouses that are rented. On the highway that goes to Paraíso, where the Olmec Refinery of Pemexthe scene is no different, all along the road you can see specialized well drilling machinery that belongs to private companies, stopped in what appear to be open-air warehouses.
“The machines are stopped here, they have not paid and they cannot get to work, there is no one to start them,” says a worker who takes care of a lot with Baker Hughes machinery. The disenchantment of what once wasMexican Dubai” is evident throughout the state.
Alejandro Frias Diazpresident of the National Chamber of the Transformation Industry (Canacintra) in Tabasco, he admits in an interview with THE UNIVERSAL that Pemex’s lack of payments to suppliers for all of 2024 has negatively impacted all sectors in the state. On average, companies fired a thousand people per month for not being able to pay them.
“There are no payments for the 2024 billing, if there are or were some who were paid… well, I don’t know, not those I know and who are registered with Canacintra. In general, in the drilling sector there are no payments. 2025 is coming and a massive layoff begins, in Tabasco a thousand people were fired and in Carmen City about 500, we registered a total of 22 thousand layoffs in 2025 alone,” says Frías.
Before the closing of this edition, via telephone, Frías updated that some companies considered “priority” for Pemex’s operation in Tabasco had already begun to receive billing payments for 2024. The payments began to fall only at the beginning of last week.
Pemex’s debt with Tabasco suppliers, until the beginning of March of this year, amounted to 400 billion pesos to be invoiced. For 2024 alone, the debt to be invoiced was 30 billion pesos, according to data recognized by Canacintra.
Read also Residents of Veracruz protest environmental damage after hydrocarbon spill; report economic losses
“All sectors are bad. You go to the neighborhoods, all the apartments are rented, there are entire empty office buildings, the large offices of Baker Hughes and Halliburton are gone, and today they occupy just one floor. Entrepreneurs that provided various services, that rented industrial warehouseswineries, hoteliers, everything was affected,” he admits. Luis Carlos Dupeyrónbusinessman and representative of the BREAD in Tabasco.
An example, according to local journalists, is the Usuma Tower —located in front of La Choca Park, in the industrial zone of Tabasco 2000—, known as the most opulent in Tabasco. The Usuma Tower has already been half-built for several years, under the promise of being the first Tabasco skyscraper.
THE UNIVERSAL He flies over the area and notices that construction material is even coming out of the unfinished tower. Workers remove rod from half-empty trucks. According to reports from local journalists, the Usuma Tower would have investment from Pemex by renting several apartments and separating itself from the rent it makes on the Business Tower, located on Paseo Tabasco Avenue.
The Business Tower is owned by one of the companies in which the senator Adam Augusto Lopezformer governor of Tabasco, is a shareholder.
Today, “the pyramid” of Pemex wears banners of denunciation by workers who accuse the oil company of “plunging them into misery” with a reform to the collective bargaining contract that prevents them from accessing their pensions.
“It would be good if Pemex paid the contractors now, it has been a very complicated Christmas for Tabasco businessmen and, therefore, for all families,” says a car guard in front of the Usuma Tower.
Several restaurants, cafes and bars in the area maintain their prices as they did during the business boom.
“They don’t want to lower their pricesbut now there are fewer customers,” says a waiter.
Join our channel EL UNIVERSAL is now on Whatsapp! From your mobile device, find out about the most relevant news of the day, opinion articles, entertainment, trends and more.
