Booted out of Pemex office: Jesus Reyes Heroles was replaced by Mexican President on the national oil company's production slump.
Reyes Heroles loses Pemex top job
Mexican President Felipe Calderon has replaced Jesus Reyes Heroles as boss of state-owned oil monopoly Pemex as the country battles to boost output and its reserves cache.
Calderon replaced Reyes Heroles with Juan Jose Suarez, a former banker and beer executive, according to a Reuters report.
Calderon urged Suarez to “accelerate the exploration and exploitation of new gas and crude reserves”.
"His duty will be to do everything in his power for Mexico to retake the position it deserves," he said.
Suarez was previously vice president of finance at brewer Grupo Modelo and a senior executive at Citigroup's Mexican bank.
Pemex is widely seen as a bloated bureaucracy and experts say it lacks funding and expertise needed to tap new reserves and turn around its falling production, Reuters reported.
But Mexico's constitution limits foreign investment in the energy industry and Mexicans are passionately against giving up any control of the industry.
Dropping oil exports have put Mexico's strained public finances under tight scrutiny.
Oil revenues fund nearly 40% of the federal budget and bond rating agencies have warned they may downgrade Mexico's debt ratings due to the country's heavy reliance on the waning oil industry, according to Reuters.
On Friday, Energy Minister Georgina Kessel warned she was concerned about Pemex's poor financial results and the company's board was reviewing possible actions to improve the situation.
Meanwhile, it emerged that Calderon accepted the resignation of his attorney general Eduardo Medina Mora.
No reason was given for Medina Mora's departure, but the president thanked him for his "brave work". Medina Mora has been key in the Mexican government's battle against the country's drug cartels.
More than 13,000 people have been killed since the government ordered the military to take the offensive against the drug gangs in 2006.
Currently 45,000 troops are deployed in an attempt to defeat the cartels that make billions trafficking cocaine and other drugs to the US.
Medina Mora's proposed replacement is a relatively unknown prosecutor, Arturo Chavez.