Mexican Eagle Petroleum Company

Compañía Mexicana de Petróleo El Águila SA, (El Águila for short), called in English the Mexican Eagle Oil Company or Mexican Eagle Petroleum Corporation, was a Mexican oil company in the 20th century.

Sir Weetman Pearson, Bart. (Viscount Cowdray from 1910) founded the company in 1909 to develop his investments in the Mexican oil fields.

Pearson's interests in Mexico had begun in 1889 when he won a contract from the government of Porfirio Díaz for his civil engineering company, S. Pearson and Sons Ltd, to build the Gran Canal in Mexico City. This was followed by contracts in 1895 to build a harbour at Veracruz and in 1896 to build the Tehuantepec Railway. Pearson diversified into mining, landholding, transport and electrical utilities around Veracruz. He and the engineer F.S. Pearson (no relation) founded the Mexico Power and Light Company, which provided Mexico City's first public electricity supply. Pearson's businesses and government contracts put him in a favourable position with members of the Díaz dictatorship.

Oil production in Mexico was begun in 1901 by a US oil investor, Henry Clay Pierce. He was quickly followed by a rival, Edward L. Doheny, in the same year. Pearson's land surveys in the vicinities of Pedregal and San Cristóbal for the route of the Tehuantepec Railway had reported oil seepage from the ground, so in April 1901 he ordered his manager in Mexico to secure prospecting options on "...all land for miles around". Pearson built a refinery, pipelines and port facilities to handle the oil in 1905–06, but his company didn't make a major oil strike until 1908. In the same year one of Pearson's oil strikes caught fire and burned out of control for eight weeks, destroying the entire oil field.

In 1909 Pearson founded the Compañía Mexicana de Petróleo El Aguila SA ("Mexican Eagle Oil Company") in Mexico to take over S. Pearson and Sons' oil interests. This followed Pearson's creation of Whitehall Securities Corporation Ltd. in the UK in 1908 to manage all of S. Pearson and Sons' investments outside the oil industry. Pearson's prospecting continued without success until 27 December 1910, when a well on the Gulf of Mexico coast between Veracruz and Tampico struck oil that flowed at a rate of 100,000 barrels per day. This single well turned the fortunes of Pearson's oil business. Within a few years he was one of Mexico's two major oil magnates, the other being Doheny. Other oil companies from the USA and Europe had entered the Mexican oil industry but Doheny and Pearson's companies remained pre-eminent until after the First World War.

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