Present Position of the Petroleum Industry in Mexico Almost the whole of the Mexican petroleum industry is in the hands of the two great Anglo-Saxon nations. Seventy per cent. of the capital invested there is American in origin, 27 per cent. Anglo-Dutch. Now Great Britain, in spite of the smallness of the capital she has sunk, triumphs more and more. Only 3 per cent. of the capital invested in this Mexican industry is Mexican.[20] [Illustration: Increase of oil production in Mexico from 1900 to 1920.] Production continues to grow at a prodigious rate.[21] It has risen from 87 million barrels in 1919 to 195 million in 1921. Edward Doheny declares that it will continue to increase for thirty years. Considerable oil-fields are still unexploited along the coast of the Pacific, and the Mexican Government officially announced the discovery of oil in the islands of the Gulf of California in September 1921. The _Mexican Petroleum_ has just bored a well, the Cerro Azul, producing 100,000 barrels a day. Two miles from this well there is another which yields 260,000 barrels a day. All these deposits are found at an almost uniform depth of 600 metres. It is estimated that Mexico can still produce 4,500 million barrels of oil. There were 367 wells in production in Mexico on January 1, 1921, of which 61 belong to the _Eagle_ and 34 to the _American Petroleum_. Other companies, with five exceptions, rarely hold more than a dozen wells. The _Eagle_ stands to-day at the head of all producing companies. Here are the four companies which produce the most:-- _Mexican Eagle_ 32 million barrels _Standard Oil of New Jersey_ 19 million barrels _Texas Company_ 12-1/2 million barrels _Mexican Petroleum_ 12-1/2 million barrels Great Britain has played a very clever game. As Phelan, the American Senator, wrote: "Her companies accommodate themselves to the political views of the Mexican Government." Moreover, they have all, from the _Mexican Eagle_ down to subsidiary companies of the _Royal Dutch_ like the _Corona_, been placed under Mexican law, which shields them from the effect of the Constitution of 1917. American companies, on the other hand, whether constituted under the laws of New Jersey, Texas or Delaware, remain foreign companies. Since March 1922 they have been working out a plan for amalgamation, so as to form a powerful American group which could resist the demands of the Mexican Government. The companies joining the group would be the _Standard Oil_, the _Sinclair_, the _Texas Company of Mexico_, the _Atlantic Refining_ and the _Mexican Petroleum_. The Supreme Court of Mexico has decided[22] that properties acquired before the Constitution of 1917 was promulgated would not be confiscated--a declaration which has reassured the United States.