In an attempt to put a stop to fuel theft, Pemex, Mexico's state-owned oil company, has announced that it will cease shipping ready-to-use petrol and diesel through its pipelines.

Pemex will reserve the use of their pipelines, which run across Mexico, for unfinished fuel only. At the point when the incomplete product reaches the company's storage plants, the fuel will then go through a final phase of mixing.

Last year, over $1 billion dollars worth of fuel was stolen by Mexican gangs, a 70 percent increase over the previous year. Upon investigation, Pemex discovered more than 2,600 illegal taps made along their network of ducts.

As reported by BBC, Pemex, which is officially known as Petroleos Mexicanos, released a statement in which they warned consumers that buying illegal fuel tapped from its pipelines will in all likelihood cause damage to car engines.

The people involved with the fuel theft are a disperse lot consisting of many criminal organizations and drug cartels.

All of this theft comes at a particularly bad time for the industry as Mexican oil production has declined from producing 3.6 million barrels a day back in 2004 to a mere 2.5 million. Since 2013, Pemex has been in the red and considered a genuine concern of the Mexican government.

President Enrique Pena Nieto made energy reform one of the main priorities of his administration. In 2014 the Mexican Congress approved President's measures and the subsequent constitutional changes have allowed foreign fuel companies to be awarded oil contracts for the first time since the industry was nationalized in 1938.

The Mexican government has been moving quickly toward the new changes. Last month, Pemex stated its plan, according to Reuters, to import up to 100,000 barrels of light crude and condensates a day from the U.S. in order to mix with the heavier crude of their domestic refineries.

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