Thank you President Pena Nieto, it's a start.

[RB TexLa]

La. companies could benefit from Mexico’s oil industry proposal




Advocate staff and wire report

August 13, 2013


Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto is proposing lifting a decades-old ban on private companies investing in that country’s state-run oil industry — a move that could open the market to Louisiana-based oil service companies.

Allowing private companies to drill in Mexico’s portion of the deepwater Gulf and inland in shale formations would be “huge” for Louisiana’s oilfield service companies, said Gifford Briggs, vice president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association.

“One of the big problems for Mexico is it has had the availability of resources, but it didn’t have the technology to take advantage of those resources,” Briggs said.

The industry is a cornerstone of Mexico’s national pride that’s seen production plummet in recent decades.

The plan outlined Monday proposes profit-sharing with private companies, the most daring gamble yet of Pena Nieto’s 8-month-old presidency.

His proposal is prohibited by the Mexican constitution, which would have to be changed.

Pena Nieto’s administration offered virtually no details about how it envisioned private participation in the national oil company, Pemex.

Pena Nieto said private companies would be able to bid for profit-sharing contracts in a number of Pemex’s businesses, including refining, petrochemical production and transportation — industries familiar to Louisiana companies.

Mexico is already one of Louisiana’s and its oilfield service industry’s biggest trading partners, Briggs said. Letting private companies drill in Mexico’s portion of the deepwater Gulf and in inland formations would be good for Mexico, Louisiana and its service companies, he said.

During the first half of the year, Louisiana’s shipments of petroleum and coal products to Mexico increased by 66.9 percent compared with 2012, according to the World Trade Center in New Orleans.




http://theadvocate.com/news/business/6764311-123/la-companies-could-benefit-from

[monmouth3]

1. Completely shallow on my part but....WOW, whose little boy is he? Sorry....