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 Business News | February 2008 
Mexico's PRI Limits Opening of Oil to Border Fields
 Andres R. Martinez - Bloomberg
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 |  | Petroleos Mexicanos needs the help of foreign companies throughout the Gulf of Mexico to halt a decline in crude output and reserves.
- President Felipe Calderon |  | | | |
Mexico's opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party is pushing to limit foreign or private investment in the state oil monopoly to offshore fields near the U.S. border, a senator said.
The party agrees that Petroleos Mexicanos needs alliances with foreign companies to prevent U.S.-based producers from depleting fields that straddle the border before Mexico can get to them, Sen. Francisco Labastida told Televisa television today. Brazil's state-controlled Petroleo Brasileiro SA and Norway's StatoilHydro ASA would be suitable partners, he said.
Labastida, head of the Senate Energy Committee, is one of his party's top negotiators with President Felipe Calderon's National Action Party, which is seeking support for a broader overhaul of energy laws. Calderon says state company Petroleos Mexicanos needs the help of foreign companies throughout the Gulf of Mexico to halt a decline in crude output and reserves.
Labastida said the two parties are yet to reach agreements on the scope of the energy bill.
``On three points we are close, but on another three we are too far apart,'' Labastida said, without saying what the six points were.
The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, thinks Petroleos Mexicanos must focus on extracting more crude from the Cantarell offshore field and Chicontepec before exploring in deep waters, Labastida said.
Calderon will present details of its energy plan to Congress by the end of next month, Energy Minister Georgina Kessel said Feb. 14. She has said Mexico must begin exploring in waters deeper than 1,500 meters to help offset a decline at Cantarell, its largest field, and replace reserves.
To contact the reporter on this story: Andres R. Martinez in Mexico City at amartinez28(at)bloomberg.net. |
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