An intercepted mail: one Pemex insider's correspondence illuminates the snafu culture of nation's oil monopoly.

I recently got a copy of an email describing a U.S. engineer's visit to a Pemex oil platform to repair some machinery. It told me the company is a hopeless mess and the more quickly Exxon/Mobil takes over, the better for Mexico.

Here are some edited highlights that I hope will provoke snorts of derision the next time a government official comes up with a new plan to make Pemex the only efficient state company in the history of Latin America. The writer of the Pemex mail is an experienced engineer, who flew into the country with a colleague to undertake emergency repairs.

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He begins, "To say that this is, without a doubt, the biggest [expletive for mess] I have ever been involved with would be an understatement. Here [is] the chain of events as they have transpired so far:

1) The required clearances and permits were not available at Pemex for both of us, upon our arrival or departure; even though repeated emails were sent two weeks in advance to assure that they were.

2) The paperwork they did have was for my partner, and his tools and equipment only, and they did not have any paperwork to cover the equipment I was taking offshore or were aware of the fact that we were even going offshore. After a hurried call to Mexico City, an engineer (from Pemex) showed up and "passed" us through security without any inspection.

3) The transportation scheduler on the boat manifest did not even know we were going to the platform. We were originally told to board the wrong crew boat at the dock in Dos Bocas, then redirected to the right crew boat only after we made somebody understand where we were going.

4) The boat crew on the boat we did wind up on did not have us listed on any of their drop-off manifests; and therefore dropped us off at the wrong platform, thus delaying our arrival. It took 13 hours to get to the right platform.

5) The platform managers (when we finally did get there) did not even know we were coming--nor were they ready for us.

6) Further, the platform could not shut down the engine we were scheduled to work on because they were awaiting a pump for the other gas turbine, in order to run the other unit. They were reluctant to even run their auxiliary generators."

He ended the report, "If we are going to continue doing business down here, we need to be doing this better and with a whole lot better coordination. We were 'shotgunned' down here on what was assumed to be an 'urgent matter' only to find out that nobody knew we were coming, the equipment was inaccessible and the customer was not ready for us to show up."

The American military came up with a term--snafu--that perfectly describes Pemex. It stands for Situation Normal, All (Expletive) Up. In other words, inherent problems go with the territory.

The unnecessary paperwork, overstaffing and lack of communication explains why Pemex is unable to exercise its annual investment budget even as it falls further behind meeting the nation's energy needs. It continues to export crude oil, the raw material, but now imports more and more finished products. What was once a symbol of independence from the United States is now the poster child for all that is wrong with the economy.

Consider this--Mexico imports as much as a million cubic feet a day of natural gas, as much as 100,000 barrels a day of gasoline and US$10 billion a year in petrochemicals. Added to its inability to invest. Pemex is extraordinarily inefficient. According to David Shields' new book, "Pemex: An Uncertain Future," Pemex produces 87 barrels a day per employee. PDVSA, the Venezuelan state oil company, manages to pump out 195 barrels a day per worker, while Royal Dutch/Shell gets 300 from each of its laborers.

The question isn't, "Should we privatize Pemex?" The question is, "Why on earth would we leave the nation's oil industry in this company's hands?"

John Moody is a former reporter from Bloomberg News who has covered political and financial news in Mexico for nearly a decade. He can be reached at [e-mail]