Political spotlight falls on licensing rounds

摘要

Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will ask President Enrique Pena Nieto to halt two auctions for onshore and shallow-water acreage, if he wins the country's 1 July election. But Lopez Obrador, who has been leading the polls for more than a year, has retreated from an earlier pledge to reverse Mexico's sweeping energy reforms. He will only call for a review of existing oil contracts, he says. "I will ask Pena Nieto on 2 July - the day after the election - to stop the award of contracts that allow companies to exploit our oil," Lopez Obrador says. But the request would have no legal standing, as the new president will not enter office until 1 December.