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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | January 2008 
Mexico's PRI Opposition Open to Energy Debate
 Catherine Bremer - Reuters
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| | The centrist PRI is now the second-weightiest party in the Senate and No. 3 in the lower house of deputies. | | |
Mexico City - Mexico's key opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) is open to all ideas for energy reform, including a constitutional change, the party's general secretary Jesus Murillo said on Tuesday.
The PRI, whose position is crucial in congressional votes, remains firmly opposed to privatizing state oil monopoly Pemex, but would back private-sector alliances if that would bolster flagging reserves, Murillo told Reuters as lawmakers sat down this month to discuss a new energy law.
Conservative President Felipe Calderon, of the National Action Party (PAN), is keen to pass a law in the February-to-April congressional session that will spruce up how Pemex operates and boost its exploration activities.
But lawmakers are split over whether to limit changes to granting Pemex more autonomy, or go as far as permitting private partnerships in the state-controlled oil industry, which some say would require constitutional change.
"We are completely open today to any proposal," said Murillo, the No. 2 in the PRI, which was ousted in 2000 after 71 years in power and which carried out the 1938 nationalization of Mexico's oil industry.
The centrist PRI is now the second-weightiest party in the Senate and No. 3 in the lower house of deputies. Mexico's other main party, the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), is against any constitutional change.
"We are ready to work with anyone that comes up with a good proposal," said Murillo. "Everything can be debated."
Murillo said there were things that could be achieved without touching the constitution, but the PRI would not oppose a constitutional change as long as it didn't affect state ownership of Mexico's oil and the rights to extracting it.
The head of the Senate energy commission, PRI Sen. Francisco Labastida, talked to Calderon about energy reform during a flight on Tuesday. Labastida said afterwards he expected a draft bill to be ready for debate in Congress in April, Mexican daily El Universal reported on its Web site.
COMMON POSITION
Some lawmakers have proposed easing barriers to foreign oil majors by letting Pemex invite private companies to join profit-sharing partnerships in deepwater oil exploration, where seismic tests suggest Mexico could find huge oil reserves.
One idea is to initially limit partnerships to offshore Gulf of Mexico oil fields that straddle the U.S. border, as U.S. oil firms are already drilling their side of the line.
"There are many ways of doing strategic alliances. The issue is how to do these alliances so that's what they are and they don't get converted into a way to modify the country's ownership of Pemex," Murillo said.
"The idea is to give Pemex the capacity to have a more certain future. The debate is in the 'how' to do it."
Pemex provides some 40 percent of Mexico's fiscal income, but the fact it pays more than half its revenues in tax and cannot form alliances means it lags foreign rivals in deepwater oil, and its output and reserves are both flagging.
Many Mexicans see Pemex as a symbol of national sovereignty and are opposed to letting foreign oil firms back into Mexico.
Calderon would need the PRI's full support to get the 2/3 congressional majority needed for constitutional change, but some see the PRI internally divided over the issue.
At the same time, a steady drop in Pemex's reserves and a decline in output from 2004 peaks has convinced most lawmakers of the need to find common ground, Murillo said.
"We are obliged to find a position that is the best-suited for the country," he said. |
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