Home reading - Veracruz
Many of the Olmec sities were locates atop vast salt domes, witch, to modern feologists,
means the presence of oil.Today that oil fuels a billon-dollar industry, second only to
manufacturing.Mexico is the leading oil producer in Latin Ametica, with the world's eighth
largest reserves.Yet even the gargantuan oil industry has been vulnerable during the country's
economic crisis.To raise cash to service the national debt, Mexico's stateowned petroleum
company,Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, has been hanging `'For sale" signs on plants that
produce petrochemicals for photographic film,antifreeze, nylon stockings, nd fertilizers.
Sharing the Gulf with Pemex oil tankers in Veracruz's fishing fleet, the largest in
Mexico.Each day before sunrise some 11,600 boats pull out to harvest shrimp,clams, oysters,
crabs, and fish- enough to supply 12 percent of the country's commercial seafood needs.
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