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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | March 2008 
Mexico Ruling Party Mulls Separate Energy Bill
 Catherine Bremer - Reuters
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Mexico City - The ruling conservative party, which wants the Mexican state oil monopoly to partner with foreign companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico, will submit such a proposal if it cannot agree with opposition parties on a joint energy bill, a senior lawmaker said on Thursday.
Many in President Felipe Calderon's National Action Party, or PAN, want a new energy law to include a clause permitting state monopoly Pemex to form alliances with foreign companies to speed up entry into the crucial deepwater oil sector.
Mexico lacks the technology to drill deepwater wells, and analysts say the fastest way to get it would be through private partnerships.
Leftists oppose joint ventures and want to keep the law that gives Pemex sole rights to extract Mexican oil. Signs of backtracking by a third opposition party could make a consensus harder to reach within the Senate energy commitee.
"We are going to make every effort to put out a consensus proposal," said PAN Sen. Ruben Camarillo, a secretary of the committee. "If we don't arrive at a consensus then each parlimentary group would be free to make a proposal that suits it," he told Reuters by telephone.
Camarillo said a PAN proposal could be submitted independently of any bill Calderon might decide to submit before the congressional session wraps up on April 30.
"It seems incongruous for lawmakers to sit with their arms folded," he said.
Pemex, a top supplier of crude to the United States, wants to develop deepwater fields as yields decline elsewhere. If preliminary seismic tests are correct, more than half Mexico's reserves could turn out to be in deep waters, Pemex Director General Jesus Reyes Heroles said at an industry event.
"We need to start working in deep waters so that in 10 years we will have the reserves to substitute for oil fields that are now declining," he said.
NOT GIVEN UP
Energy Minister Georgina Kessel, who has not said whether Calderon plans to submit a separate proposal through her, met with PAN lawmakers this week over the energy bill.
A senior senator for the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) said this week it might be wiser to look at a two-stage reform would give Pemex more autonomy before tackling strategic alliances with foreign companies.
Calderon lacks a majority in Congress. With leftists opposing private partnerships in oil, he needs the PRI's full backing to bring foreign partners into the oil sector.
PAN Senator Gustavo Madero said the party had not given up on winning over opposition parties and said it would also support any parallel initiative from Calderon.
(Additional reporting by Jason Lange and Miguel Angel Gutierrez) |
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