An advisor to the leftist candidate leading the polls ahead of Mexico’s presidential election has said that Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador would not overturn the energy reforms that have opened up much offshore oil and gas drilling to foreign and private competition, according to Reuters.
Just two weeks ago Lopez Obrador told an audience in Mexico City that, if elected in July, he would ask current President Enrique Pena Nieto to suspend two energy rights auctions scheduled for before December when the inauguration should take place.
Now Olga Sanchez Cordero, who is believed to be Lopez Obrador’s preference to be interior minister, said on Thursday that Lopez Obrador would not necessarily roll back the reforms.
Instead, she said, he would review the contracts made under the reform policy, looking for signs of corruption.
The reforms, initiated in 2014, have led to a number of competitive oil auctions and the signing of more than a hundred exploration and production deals.
Presidential fiat is not enough to overturn the constitutional reforms that effectively ended state oil firm Pemex’s near 80-year monopoly. It would take a two-thirds majority in Mexico’s Congress to repeal the reforms.
