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Uncovering the Secret History of Wall Street’s Largest Oil Trade
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Uncovering the Secret History of Wall Street’s Largest Oil Trade

Javier Blas
Bloomberg Business, 2017
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Eye Opening
  • Overview
  • Background

Recommendation

If you have never heard of Mexico’s large, annual oil bets, it’s for good reason: Since the early 1990s, the Mexican government has gone out of its way to keep its Wall Street activities under wraps. Javier Blas, chief energy reporter at Bloomberg News, has gone through thousands of pages of government audit reports and other documents in the United States and Mexico, as well as interviewed government officials, traders and bankers, to tell the story of how Mexico has been protecting itself from oil price fluctuations for all these years. getAbstract recommends this piece of first-rate investigative reporting to energy traders, policy makers and Wall Street insiders. 

Take-Aways

  • The Mexican government has been engaged in secretive oil price hedges with prominent Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Barclays since the 1990s.
  • Between 2001 and 2017, Mexico’s annual oil hedges generated a total of $2.4 billion in profits.
  • Wall Street banks have been competing for a share in Mexico’s oil hedges, which bring in lucrative revenue in the form of fees but also carry the risk of significant losses.

About the Author

Javier Blas is chief energy correspondent for Bloomberg News in London.

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