MEXICO CITY (AP) - Depleted reserves, crumbling pipelines, outdated technology and billions of dollars in debt. It doesn't seem much to celebrate when Mexico commemorates the 69th anniversary of the nationalization of its oil monopoly Sunday. In fact, energy experts say Mexico's oil industry needs to launch a rapid rescue plan and stop looking back to its storied past. Government leaders and executives at Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, have been warning about the problems for years. But they haven't taken much action, in large part because the state-owned company is viewed as a national treasure. When it was nationalized in 1938, Mexicans celebrated in the streets and even donated their jewelry to help pay for the state takeover. Since then, the state-run company has been the government's biggest source of income and Mexicans are wary of any changes to its operation that could be seen as a threat to Mexican sovereignty. But problems abound. The company's main shallow-water Cantarell oil field off the Gulf coast is slowly running out of oil, while the company struggles with leaky pipelines that have led to spills and explosions, debt and pension obligations totaling upward of US$100 billion (euro76 billion), and a lack of technology and money to fix those problems.
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