Mexico Energy Reform Won't Offer Private Oil Concessions - Ruling Party Leader

Reuters reports that a "sweeping energy overhaul" that Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto is set to unveil on Monday will not offer private firms concessions to tap Mexican oil, but will propose amending the constitution to allow them to invest in the ailing sector, the head of the ruling party told Reuters on Sunday.

The energy overhaul is the cornerstone of a wide-reaching reform package that Pena Nieto hopes will boost economic growth in Latin America's No. 2 economy and lift Mexico's energy sector into the modern era, but is politically divisive.

"In no way is it a privatization. It is opening up the possibility for private capital to join public policies ... without going as far as concessions," said Cesar Camacho, chairman of Pena Nieto's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

Leftist parties are against constitutional changes, calling them tantamount to privatizing Mexico's oil wealth controlled by state-owned oil monopoly Pemex PEMX.UL.

Copyright 2013 Reuters.