Mexicans Are Disappearing From Texas in Latest Twist on Oil Bust
March 2, 2016 — 5:01 AM EST
Updated on March 2, 2016 — 12:45 PM EST
The plunge in the peso has throttled the purchasing power of Silvia Guerra’s most important customers: shoppers from south-of-the-border cities like Nuevo Laredo, Monterrey and Saltillo who walk over the Gateway to the Americas International Bridge a few blocks down Convent Street.
“We are dead over here, business is dead,” Guerra says from her store in Laredo, on the Texas side of the Rio Grande, surrounded by racks of dresses and colorful rolls of fabric as people stroll in and out, without purchasing.
The Mexican currency is a casualty of the global oil-price collapse, and Guerra’s family is testament to the ugly impact of the double whammy in South Texas. She figures she’ll be out of business by May. Her husband lost his job leasing drilling equipment for Weatherford International Plc. Their daughter, an administrator for Baker Hughes Inc. in San Antonio, was told her position is at risk after more than 700 firings recently at the oil-services company. Their son, who supervises fracking operations for C&J Energy Services Ltd., has seen his paycheck shrink so much he’s looking for side work.
“The news hit like a bomb,” Silvia Guerra says, recalling when her husband was laid off 10 months ago after 16 years with Weatherford.
Crude values have plummeted 70 percent since June 2014, crippling Mexican exports and idling rigs in Texas’s Eagle Ford shale formation, which starts just north of Laredo. The peso is down 26 percent against the dollar in the past two years. All Texas border cities are feeling a pinch, with state data showing sales-tax receipts falling as much as 6 percent in the second quarter from a year ago. But merchants in Laredo say business is off 50 percent or more.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-02/mexicans-are-disappearing-from-texas-in-latest-twist-on-oil-bust
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