By THE PULSE NEWS MEXICO STAFF

Two months after the start of his nationwide program to curb fuel theft, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) said on Thursday, Feb. 21, that the amount of stolen gasoline has dropped from 56,000 barrels a day to just 8,000 a day.

“We experienced some difficult moments and about a week of fuel shortages in some larger cities,” AMLO told reporters during his daily early morning press conference.

But now, he said, the problem is resolved.

The president also said that since his program to stop huachicoleo (gasoline theft) was launched in late December, shortly after he took office for a six-year term, 175 people involved in the crime have been detained, some of whom are being held without bail.

Octavio Romero Oropeza, director of the state-owned oil company Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), who also attended the conference, said that as a result of an expanded fleet of oil tanker trucks and a massive distribution efforts by the government, there are no longer any shortages of gasoline, diesel or jet fuel.

This reduction in fuel shortage will result in a savings for Pemex of about 48 billion pesos in 2019, Romero Oropeza said.