Energy policy diferences intensify

摘要

The Mexican federal government’s radical stance towards the country’s energy reforms is encountering opposition inside and outside congress, ahead of critical mid-term elections next year. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s administration appears to be taking an increasingly aggressive view of the 2014 reforms, which ushered in private-sector involvement in the oil, gas and power sectors. Lopez Obrador’s latest move has been to liaise with regulators to actively help state-owned oil company Pemex and utility CFE to compete with their private-sector rivals, even though these frms are supposed to be independent of the executive. Lopez Obrador has warned that he will seek to push through changes to the constitution if the government is unable to act under the current legal frame- work.