The US and Mexican governments have signed a deal over transboundary maritime oil and gas reserves in the Gulf of Mexico. The announcement of President Felipe Calderón’s signature on the bi-national energy agreement seems to have taken many Mexican lawmakers by surprise.
Now they want the Energy Secretary and the head of Pemex to explain the terms of the agreement. Ratification by Mexico’s Senate is
required for the agreement to take effect, but it is being presented as a done deal.
Oil and gas reserves in Mexico are national property – and Pemex, the state-owned entity which explores and extracts the reserves – is
Mexico’s number one source of national revenue.
Plans to open up the industry to private investment have met stiff political resistance in the past. But much of the country’s national attention has been diverted to the violence which has claimed more than 50 thousand lives since the militarization of the so-called Drug
War in late 2006.
Before assuming the presidency, Calderón was Mexico’s Energy Secretary.