ManattJones CEO Discusses Mexico’s Oil Industry
“Mexico Weighs Fixes for Faltering Pemex”
Charleston Gazette
August 10, 2008 – The Charleston Gazette interviewed ManattJones Global Strategies Chairman and CEO James R. Jones on Mexico’s nationalized oil industry.
The Charleston Gazette reports that Mexico President Felipe Calderon has proposed a controversial energy overhaul that would modernize Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), the country’s 70-year-old oil company. Calderon’s proposal would allow private foreign firms to search for deep-water oil, as well as build and run refineries.
However, many Mexicans have equated Pemex with national sovereignty since the oil industry became state-owned in 1938. Pemex was even off limits in the North American Free Trade Agreement, which opened up all trade among the United States, Canada and Mexico.
"To my knowledge Pemex was never on the table ... it was politically out of bounds," recalled Jones, who was the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico at the time.
Read the article here.