| | |  Business News | October 2008 
Mexico's Political Parties Agree to Draft Bill on Oil Contracts
 Adriana Lopez Caraveo & Jens Erik Gould - Bloomberg
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Mexican lawmakers have agreed to begin drafting a bill that would allow the state oil monopoly to contract with private domestic and foreign companies for exploration and production.
Mexico's three biggest political parties have agreed the bill should provide performance-based incentives for companies that partner with state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, lawmakers from each party said during a news conference. Legislators haven't agreed on a section of the bill that will address Pemex refining, supply and pipelines and will begin debating it this week, lawmaker Ruben Camarillo, of the ruling National Action Party, said at the conference in Mexico City.
"No one disagrees with the participation of the private sector," Senator Graco Ramirez, a member of the opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, told reporters. "Even the PRD recognizes that service contracts can be carried out by other companies."
President Felipe Calderon proposed in April to give Pemex more leeway to hire private and foreign companies, saying such a measure would help it invest to reverse declining oil output. PRD members shut down Congress for two weeks that month in protest over the initiative.
Lawmakers hope to have a final draft of the bill within two weeks, said Senator Francisco Labastida, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, who heads the Senate's energy committee. The government would pay the incentives for private firms in cash, not in crude oil, PAN lawmaker Juan Bueno Torio said. The incentives may include bonuses for completing contracts quickly or for using Mexican technology, he said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Adriana Lopez Caraveo in Mexico City at adrianalopez(at)bloomberg.net; Jens Erik Gould in Mexico City at jgould9(at)bloomberg.net |
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