Pres. says extra-funds will boost company’s flagging output
BY MAURILIO SOTO
The News
President Enrique Peña Nieto said on Tuesday that 2014 will be a year of record investment in state-run oil company Pemex, which he said will represent a watershed moment for Mexico’s economic development.
According to Peña Nieto, a total of 357.5 billion pesos ($27.2 billion) will be invested in Pemex this year, which he said is 31.2 billion pesos more than in 2013 and 56.2 billion more than in 2012. Pemex pays around 90 percent of its revenue to the federal government in taxes.
He said that this record level of investment was made possible thanks to last year’s energy reform, which increased the amount of private investment allowed by law in Pemex, and which he called the most important economic transformation seen in Mexico over the last 50 years.
“We’re creating a powerful combination to attract more domestic and foreign investment and, with it, create the jobs that our young people need,” Peña Nieto said. “It’s time that the country’s economic resources allow us to build a new Mexico, a more dynamic, more competitive and, what’s most important, more prosperous Mexico.”
Peña Nieto said that the reform will allow Pemex to take advantage of cutting-edge drilling technology without putting the federal government’s financial resources in jeopardy.
This, he added, could allow the company to reverse its falling production levels, which threatened to make Mexico into a net importer of oil and natural gas.
He said that this would have put thousands of jobs and Mexico’s energy security at risk.
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