The global natural gas revolution has arrived in Mexico. As the country’s power sector undertakes a fuel shift toward natural gas, state-owned and domestic companies are beginning to seek ways to partner with technology-empowered foreign firms to boost domestic production.While maintaining and expanding struggling crude oil production at state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos (better known as Pemex) has been a priority for successive Mexican governments, and is part of the logic behind the constitutional changes proposed by the current government of Enrique Pena Nieto, the transformation of the Mexican electric power sector underway may be the more notable change, Steptoe &...

The president of Mexico is trying to achieve what others have tried to do and failed. That is, reform the country’s oil industry to allow more foreign investment.Energy reform might not sound like a big deal in this country. But in Mexico, it’s downright revolutionary.Oil money laid the foundation for Mexico’s economic independence. And many Mexicans see the commodity as a national heritage that should be passed on to future generations, and not an asset to be sold-off to foreign companies.Nonetheless, president Enrique Peña Nieto has proposed a constitutional amendment to allow foreign companies more direct investment in the...

Mexico’s ambitious president has unleashed a staggering series of reforms in his first year, tackling education, labor relations, and drug crime. But the trickiest gambit of all may be one that strikes at the heart of the nation’s pride and its economy: the bid to transform Mexico’s energy sector.President Enrique Peña Nieto, who took office in December, has confronted in oil and natural gas an issue central to Mexico’s sense of sovereignty. The day in 1938 when President Lázaro Cárdenas kicked out the U.S. and British oil companies and nationalized Mexico’s reserves is celebrated each year as a national...