Mexico’s congress has approved a key package of energy reform legislation, including changes to the finance minis-try and fiscal responsibility bill that would allow the state to take over around one-third of state-owned oil firm Pemex’s pension debt. The new legislation allows the energy ministry to begin tendering upstream blocks for the first time since 1938.It will also shift ownership and control of Pemex’s natural gas pipeline backbone to the new national natural gas control centre Cenagas.Pemex formally lost its upstream monopoly through a constitutional reform approved in December,but the legislation is needed to implement the process(WPA,20 December,p11).The first upstream ten-ders are expected to take place around July 2015,after most of the new meas-ures take effect on 1 January 2015.
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