Posted on 12/11/2013 11:42:27 AM PST by JerseyanExile
Mexico’s energy sector has been largely sealed off from foreign investment for the better part of a century, but historic legislation, proposed over the weekend, may change that.
After months of negotiating behind closed doors, the Senate issued a 295-page reform proposal that goes much further than most had expected in opening Mexico’s oil and gas fields to international investment.
“It is groundbreaking,” said Gabriel Salinas, an attorney with Mayer Brown, who has followed the reform debates closely. “It provides what companies will need to go down there and develop Mexico’s resources. I think the bill has everything that Mexico needs to have a competitive energy sector, like that of Brazil or Colombia.”
The proposed constitutional amendment would break the decades-old monopoly that Mexico’s national company, Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, has enjoyed, requiring it for the first time to compete potentially with other companies for projects.
“It’s the biggest change you could imagine,” said Steve Otillar, a Houston-based partner specializing in the emerging market energy sector for Akin Gump, an international law firm. “The government and Pemex have historically been joined at the hip — they are a designated monopoly in the constitution, and that is one of the key things that is being changed.”
Sharing rewards: Services companies stand to profit if Pemex makes changes
An earlier proposal by President Enrique Peña Nieto would have allowed companies to receive cash payments, called profit sharing contracts, in exchange for participation. But this proposal goes much further, allowing companies the option to share in the actual oil production, or to contract independently of Pemex.
“It seems that the notion of profit sharing has been dropped,” said George Baker, publisher of Mexico Energy Intelligence.
(Excerpt) Read more at fuelfix.com ...
Ping.
Been watching them for 40 years. Every time they come close to greatness they back off. They could be such a great country. I root for them I really do. If they could get their act together it would solve the immigration problem.
Mexico has a national holiday every year to celebrate the expropriation (stealing) of the assets of international oil companies back in the 1930’s. After World War II the American and British oil companies partnered with the Saudis, Kuwaitis, etc. and made the Arabs rich. Mexico deserves to be poor. They got what they asked for and now they are telling another country, USA, how to manage internal affairs. F*$^’em!
Might even reverse the immigration problem.
If they really felt crazy, they'd grant land-owners the mineral rights below the ground. Now, that's what turns the so-called oil curse into a builder of wealthy nations.
> Mexico’s energy sector has been largely sealed off from foreign investment for the better part of a century... the Senate issued a 295-page reform proposal... “It is groundbreaking,” said Gabriel Salinas, an attorney with Mayer Brown, who has followed the reform debates closely. “It provides what companies will need to go down there and develop Mexico’s resources. I think the bill has everything that Mexico needs to have a competitive energy sector, like that of Brazil or Colombia.”
IOW, George Soros.
Thanks JerseyanExile.
Removing the “rights to the subsoil” idea will be quite an achievement, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Foreign investment has never been much of a problem in Mexico, but has been a steady beat on the propaganda drum for over a century. The extraction methods used in Mexico were labor intensive and not too profitable because it was slow. Labor was what was available, and bringing in machinery difficult at best because of the terrain, sh#tty roads, and frequent “revolutions” and other uprisings which went on from the last decade or more of Spanish rule through the ugly, bloody Mexican Civil War (1910-1921); the only period of relative stability was the 30 or so year dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz. Diaz’ motto was “bread or the stick”. :’)
so many seem to feel that those of darker hue are less worthy
to enjoy the God given freedom acknowleged in the Declaration.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/11/mexican-lawmakers-stage-lock-in-to-block-oil-reform-bill/
The left went apes*it. Has this temper tantrum ended?
Oh, I don't expect to see it at all. But the current reforms are a huge step in the right direction.
Yeah, the internet is filled to the brim with misplaced hostility.
Will they pass?
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