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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | January 2005 
Canadian Legislators Urge Mexico To Move Forward With Energy Reform
 Associated Press
 Mexico City - Canadian legislators encouraged their Mexican counterparts to move forward with efforts to reform Mexico's energy industry, during talks Wednesday in Mexico City.
President Vicente Fox's proposal to open the energy sector to more private and foreign investment has stalled in Mexico's opposition-dominated Congress.
Outside investment in energy remains an emotionally charged political issue in Mexico, which expropriated foreign oil companies in 1938.
"Canada has had a much more open approach to investment in our energy sector," said Daniel Hays, speaker of the Canadian Senate. "Our energy sector, we believe, is very successful and one that is, we hope, an interesting example for Mexico in terms of some of the options you might consider if you should decide to have a more open policy with respect to investment here."
Congressman Carlos Jimenez said the comments encouraging Mexico to act quickly on new energy regulations were well received.
"We agreed in front of our (Canadian) counterparts on the urgency for getting past the debate and finding a different model for developing the energy sector," said Jimenez, a member of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, which holds the largest bloc in Congress.
But Mexican Senator Raymundo Cardenas, of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, said speeding up energy reform may not be possible as parties stake out political positions in advance of 2006 presidential elections.
"Many of us said (to the Canadians), 'Wait, it's not time for this,' " Cardenas said. "It still cannot be accomplished. It's under debate. We'll see what happens."
Mexican state oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, has annual revenues of $74 billion Cdn. But more than 60 per cent of its sales goes to the federal government through taxes and royalties, leaving the company in the end with net losses.
Pemex has sought outside help in developing natural gas fields in northeastern Mexico through multiple-service contracts awarded to foreign companies through a public bidding process. Opposition legislators argue that the contracts violate a constitutional ban on oil and gas concessions.
As Canadian and Mexican legislators met Tuesday and Wednesday, Pemex was racing to clean up a liquid-gas spill in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz. Pemex blamed the spill, the fourth such incident in just over a month, on its aging infrastructure and insufficient investment in maintenance.
The two-day meetings also included discussions on trade, migration, and security issues. |
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