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Mexican lawmakers protest oil law



By Upstream staff 

Mexican Leftist lawmakers protested Calderon’s Pemex reform proposal by storming the floor of congress and interrupting sessions in both chambers.

Deputies and Senators from the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), waved banners and shouted slogans accusing President Felipe Calderon of trying to privatise Pemex.

“Today we are starting a peaceful resistance campaign,” said PRD Senator Ricardo Monreal. “We won't stop until they retract this privatisation plan.”

It was the second setback of the day for Calderon's bill after another opposition party criticised a part of the proposal that would allow private companies to invest in oil refining.

The government this week handed its energy reform plan to Congress to try to rescue declining output and give Pemex the capability of searching for oil in deep water, possibly by working with foreign companies.

Calderon's conservative party lacks a majority in Congress, but can still win approval of the plan through an alliance with the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

He has repeatedly said he does not want to privatise Pemex.

But leftists, lead by former presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, are promising a wave of street protests to try to stop the measure.

The PRI says it likes the general look of the proposal.

But the party's leader in the Senate, Manlio Fabio Beltrones, said he was suspicious of allowing private investors into refining, which is another key part of the reform plan since Mexico imports about 40% of its gasoline, reported Reuters.

The proposal would allow incentive-based service contracts across the state-run oil sector from oil drilling and refining to pipelines and storage.

Beltrones said other parts of the proposal could help raise the capital needed to build new refineries, eliminating the need to call in private companies.


Thursday, 10 April, 2008, 20:46 GMT  | last updated: Friday, 11 April, 2008, 00:16 GMT

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