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Calderon seeks Brazil deep-water help



By Upstream staff 

Photo by AP


Mexican president-elect Felipe Calderon said today he wanted state oil company Pemex to reach deals with Brazil's state-run Petrobras to use Brazilian deep-sea drilling technologies in the Gulf of Mexico.

Calderon, a former energy minister who takes office as president on 1 December, met Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Petrobras chief executive Jose Sergio Gabrielli in Brasilia.

He said he favoured an "understanding that would be useful for Pemex and Mexico" and that possible deals could give Pemex "access to the technology that it still lacks to explore the enormous potential of our reserves that in the future will be more oriented towards deep waters in the Gulf of Mexico".

Petrobras is a leading expert in deep and ultra-deep water E&P.

Still, Calderon made clear Mexico would retain ownership of oil produced on its territory, as the constitution demands.

Petrobras officials have on many occasions said the company is interested in Mexican oil reserves but as an oil producer and not as a service company without a share of output.

Mexico is the world's fifth-biggest oil producer and one of the key suppliers to the US. It is now working to replenish its dwindling reserves and is planning to go to greater at sea searching for oil.

Calderon also said he asked Lula to help develop an ethanol producing industry in Mexico and promote consumption of the sugar cane-based fuel. Brazil is the world's biggest producer of ethanol.

He said that a Mexican ethanol industry would give "economic benefits to sugar cane producers in Mexico", especially after 2008 when the US and Mexico will have an open market in sugar and sweetener trade, Reuters reported.


Friday, 06 October, 2006, 22:40 GMT  | last updated: Friday, 06 October, 2006, 22:40 GMT

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