It should have been a day of high excitement. A public auction on July 15th marked the end of a 77-year monopoly on oil exploration and production by Pemex, Mexico's state-owned oil company, and ushered in a new era of foreign investment in Mexican oil that until a few years ago was considered unimaginable. The Mexican government had hoped that its first-ever auction of shallow-water exploration blocks in the Gulf of Mexico would successfully launch the modernisation of its energy industry. In the run-up to the bidding, Mexico had sought to be as accommodating as its historic dislike for foreign oil companies allowed it to be. Juan Carlos Zepeda, head of the National Hydrocarbons Commission, the regulator, had put a premium on transparency, saying there was "zero room" for favouritism.
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机译：这应该是充满兴奋的一天。 7月15日的公开拍卖标志着墨西哥国有石油公司Pemex对石油勘探和生产进行77年垄断的终结，并开启了外国投资墨西哥石油的新纪元，直到几年前，墨西哥才被认为是难以想象。墨西哥政府曾希望，有史以来第一次在墨西哥湾进行的浅水勘探区块拍卖能够成功地推动其能源工业的现代化。在竞标的前夕，墨西哥一直试图像其对外国石油公司的历史性厌恶一样宽容。监管机构国家碳氢化合物委员会负责人胡安·卡洛斯·泽佩达（Juan Carlos Zepeda）高度重视透明度，称赞成的可能性“为零”。
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