Mexico’s Congress sounded the starting gun this week for a rush of potentially billions of dollars in oil and gas investment when it passed energy reform legislation that would let foreign companies operate there for the first time since 1938.

U.S. businesses are poised to benefit, as the state-owned Mexican oil giant Pemex advocated for the monopoly-busting measure as a means to tap onshore shale plays and deepwater deposits in the Gulf of Mexico.

The amount of investment in the Mexican side of the Gulf could be “a factor of 10” greater than what’s been spent on the U.S. portion, said Ken Medlock, an energy fellow at Rice University’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.

via US companies poised to move into Mexican oil industry after reform vote | WashingtonExaminer.com.