The federal government is set to announce the construction of a chain of state-owned gas stations along the route of the Maya Train railroad.
Pemex, the National Institute of Social Economy and the National Tourism Promotion Fund (Fonatur) will announce on Tuesday the construction of gas stations to be known as Gasolineras del Bienestar, or Well-Being gas stations, the newspaper El Universal reported.
The new gas stations on the 1,500-kilometer-long Maya Train route through Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo will be built in conjunction with community landowners and local authorities. Federal authorities have already begun discussions with ejido (agricultural cooperative) authorities and visited potential construction sites.
The first Bienestar stations will be built in the south of Quintana Roo. One community likely to get one is Sergio Butrón Casas, a sugar cane growing community 30 kilometers west of Chetumal and just north of the border with Belize.
The aim of the stations will be to strengthen the “social and caring economy,” El Universal said. The number to be built is expected to be announced tomorrow.
Gabriel Guillermo Arellano Aguilar, a deputy director of Fonatur, which is building the Maya Train, said last month that the communities in which new gas stations are built will be responsible for managing them.
“[It’s] our commitment to provide support to them to guarantee their success,” he said.
The state oil company will supply fuel to the Bienestar stations, which will be Pemex franchises, albeit with a different name. Construction of the new stations will help boost the state company’s participation in the retail fuel market.
Out of almost 13,000 gas stations in Mexico, more than 7,200 operate under the Pemex brand but the company’s sales have declined in recent years as more private companies have entered the market.
President López Obrador announced last month that the state oil company would create a new division to be called Gas Bienestar to distribute LP gas directly to consumers.
With reports from El Universal
