 |
|
|
 Business News | December 2006 
Calderon Names Reyes Heroles to Head Pemex
 MarketWatch
Mexican President Felipe Calderon named economist and former energy minister Jesus Reyes Heroles to take over the helm at state oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, Saturday.
Calderon, who took office Friday for a six-year term, kept Alfredo Elias Ayub at the head of the state-owned power utility Comision Federal de Electricidad, according to a statement posted on the presidency Web site.
Reyes Heroles, who will replace Luis Ramirez Corzo at the head of the state oil company, is an economist from Mexico's ITAM university. He was Mexican ambassador to the U.S. from 1997 to 2000, and energy minister from 1995-1997 under former President Ernesto Zedillo.
As energy minister, Reyes Heroles promoted a number of changes in the sector. He pushed through a reclassification of petrochemicals to encourage greater private investment in the industry, and worked to promote private involvement in natural gas transmission and distribution, as well as electricity generation.
Pemex has a monopoly on upstream oil and gas activities, as well as oil refining in Mexico, but private investment is allowed in downstream activities, including natural gas pipelines and storage, petrochemicals and power generation.
Among the challenges faced by the Calderon government is to maintain crude production at Pemex as output declines at its main oil field Cantarell.
Pemex is currently producing about 3.2 million barrels a day of crude oil and about 5.6 billion cubic feet a day of natural gas. Its crude oil exports are about 1.7 million b/d.
Calderon has said he favors allowing Pemex to form technological alliances with private companies to exploit potential reserves in deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, as well as refining joint-ventures in Mexico like the one Pemex has with Royal/Dutch Shell in Deer Park, Texas.
Ramirez Corzo told the Senate Energy Committee last month that output at Cantarell is expected to decline at an average rate of 14% a year between 2007 and 2015, and that Pemex needs to be investing $18 billion to $20 billion a year in exploration and production. Pemex has invested about $14 billion this year, and plans to invest $16 billion in 2007.
Oil and related taxes account for more than a third of federal revenue, and the state oil company hands over nearly 60% of its total sales to the government.
Elias Ayub, meanwhile, will enter his third administration at the head of the CFE. He was appointed in the late 1990s by Zedillo, and remained in the post under President Vicente Fox. Elias Ayub has overseen nearly a decade of expansion at CFE, in which generation capacity has risen from 34,000 megawatts to nearly 47,000 megawatts, including 9,300 megawatts supplied by independent power producers.
Elias Ayub also took measures to secure natural gas supplies for the state utility, which has based much of its expansion on gas-fueled combined-cycle plants. The CFE has awarded a number of long-term supply contracts for gas imported via liquefied natural gas terminals, and is planning more. The power company has also built a large fiber optic network, and last month was awarded a government concession to lease spare capacity on the network to communications companies.
Also remaining in his post is Victor Borras as director of the government-run housing fund Infonavit, which is the country's largest mortgage lender with a loan portfolio of about $40 billion. Infonavit is expected to make 435,000 loans this year, and aims for at least 540,000 home loans in 2007. In his six years at Infomnavit, Borras has lowered the fund's past-due loan ratio to just over 6% from nearly 22%.
Other appointments made Saturday by Calderon include naming former ruling National Action Party legislator Juan Molinar Horcasitas to head the Mexican Social Security Institute, and Miguel Angel Yunes of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, to head the State Workers Social Security Institute. |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us