Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Wednesday his government was not contemplating reopening auctions this year for oil and gas blocks, saying contracts were already handed out during the previous administration and firms needed to invest.
“It’s not contemplated,” Lopez Obrador said at his daily press conference when asked if his government was considering offering auctions for oil and gas blocks.
Lopez Obrador, who has been in office for a year, has shifted sharply away from some of the business-friendly policies of his predecessor, centrist President Enrique Pena Nieto, who enacted a sweeping energy market liberalization in 2013.
While Lopez Obrador has said he would not seek to constitutionally reverse those reforms, he has canceled competitive oil and power auctions since he took office in December 2018.
Reporting by Anthony Esposito and Lizbeth Diaz; Editing by Marianna Parraga and Bernadette Baum
