Pemex and Recent Energy Reforms in Mexico

Eduardo González-Pier, Executive Advisor to the Director General at Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), led a roundtable discussion on the opportunities and challenges facing PEMEX production and the recent energy reforms in Mexico.

In his presentation, Eduardo opened with a brief overview of PEMEX resources and where the firm stood among international oil firms. Moving toward the challenges currently facing PEMEX, Mr. González-Pier identified declining production, increasing production costs and a low replacement rate as the primary obstacles to production growth.

Mr. González-Pier then opened the discussion on Mexican energy reform with a brief outline of Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s 2008 reform proposal, a set of amendments and new statutes that found wide approval among large majorities in both houses of Congress. Calderon and Congress agreed on the need to support PEMEX with new contractual agreements, enhanced fiscal incentives and stronger federal policy. Mr. González-Pier then dove deeper into the details of each reform item, outlining what the provisions were intended to achieve and how they would be pursued by both the Mexican government and PEMEX. Mr. González-Pier closed with an explanation of how these reforms would aid PEMEX in reaching its investment and production goals in the coming years.