Mexico Energy

Mexico on Wednesday sharply expanded its efforts to lure private capital to its natural gas industry, announcing it will open 10 pipeline projects around the country to bidders--including one that would bring California natural gas into Mexico. U.S. companies have been eagerly eyeing the Mexican natural gas market since last fall, when a new law allowed foreigners to compete in energy development and transportation here for the first time in 60 years.

WASHINGTON - President Obama will seek to cement relations with Mexico's new president, Enrique Peña Nieto, over the next two days with vows of neighborly kinship and future cooperation. But the true test of their ability to work together may be whether they can hold their tongues. Obama's visit to Mexico City comes as the fight over border security and immigration reform has begun to consume Congress. Peña Nieto supports the effort but wants to avoid the mistakes of a predecessor, Vicente Fox, who lobbied for a 2001 immigration reform bill in Congress.

Three weeks after Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady announced what sounded like a new opening for U.S. companies in Mexican oil fields, the implications of a pending $1.5-billion Export-Import Bank loan to Mexico for oil equipment and services remain unclear. Opinions are divided over whether Mexico is taking the first step toward allowing foreign companies back into its oil patch after 52 years or is simply gearing up for expanded exploration and production, as it did 15 years ago.

Ever since the Fab Four started playing the Cavern Club in Liverpool, certain rock acts have been linked inextricably with certain cities. It practically defies imagination to picture Lou Reed honing his downtown Manhattan hipster-poet's chops in, say, Yazoo City, Miss.or Kurt Cobain and Nirvana slouching toward grunge-dom while drenched in the sunshine of South Florida, rather than soaking in Seattle's melancholy drizzle.

A constitutional battle is forming over a new plan by Mexico's state-owned energy monopoly to attract as much as $8 billion in foreign investment to develop natural gas reserves. Its outcome could have a profound effect on Mexico's energy future and the North American industry in general.

Ever since the Fab Four started playing the Cavern Club in Liverpool, certain rock acts have been linked inextricably with certain cities. It practically defies imagination to picture Lou Reed honing his downtown Manhattan hipster-poet's chops in, say, Yazoo City, Miss.or Kurt Cobain and Nirvana slouching toward grunge-dom while drenched in the sunshine of South Florida, rather than soaking in Seattle's melancholy drizzle.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Wednesday approved the construction of a gas pipeline from Arizona to Baja California, clearing the way for a major extension of the North American pipeline grid into the fast-growing border region of Mexico. The 215-mile pipeline's main purpose is to deliver gas produced in U.S. and Canadian wells to several electric power plants under construction or already built in Baja California.

WASHINGTON - President Obama will seek to cement relations with Mexico's new president, Enrique Peña Nieto, over the next two days with vows of neighborly kinship and future cooperation. But the true test of their ability to work together may be whether they can hold their tongues. Obama's visit to Mexico City comes as the fight over border security and immigration reform has begun to consume Congress. Peña Nieto supports the effort but wants to avoid the mistakes of a predecessor, Vicente Fox, who lobbied for a 2001 immigration reform bill in Congress.

Gallant Solutions, a Camarillo-based provider of technical staffing and executive search services as well as environmental consulting, has opened a branch office in Albuquerque, N.M. The new unit will concentrate on serving New Mexico's energy and defense industries, said Bill Barbee, Gallant's executive vice president. "Several of our consulting clients in Ventura County have interests in New Mexico, so it seemed natural to expand our efforts in that state," Barbee said.

The Energy Department has been forced to delay the scheduled September opening of a radioactive waste dump in New Mexico, Energy Secretary James D. Watkins told Congress. Watkins told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Environmental Protection Agency had fallen far behind schedule in providing a legally required verification that toxic wastes at the repository would not migrate off the site. "We physically cannot get through this process until November," Watkins said, adding that, under normal procedures, it would take until next February before the EPA could hold public hearings on the waste migration issue.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Wednesday approved the construction of a gas pipeline from Arizona to Baja California, clearing the way for a major extension of the North American pipeline grid into the fast-growing border region of Mexico. The 215-mile pipeline's main purpose is to deliver gas produced in U.S. and Canadian wells to several electric power plants under construction or already built in Baja California.

A constitutional battle is forming over a new plan by Mexico's state-owned energy monopoly to attract as much as $8 billion in foreign investment to develop natural gas reserves. Its outcome could have a profound effect on Mexico's energy future and the North American industry in general.

Mexico on Wednesday sharply expanded its efforts to lure private capital to its natural gas industry, announcing it will open 10 pipeline projects around the country to bidders--including one that would bring California natural gas into Mexico. U.S. companies have been eagerly eyeing the Mexican natural gas market since last fall, when a new law allowed foreigners to compete in energy development and transportation here for the first time in 60 years.

Three weeks after Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady announced what sounded like a new opening for U.S. companies in Mexican oil fields, the implications of a pending $1.5-billion Export-Import Bank loan to Mexico for oil equipment and services remain unclear. Opinions are divided over whether Mexico is taking the first step toward allowing foreign companies back into its oil patch after 52 years or is simply gearing up for expanded exploration and production, as it did 15 years ago.

MEXICO CITY - President Obama on Friday painted a sunny picture of a modern Mexico emerging from its past troubles, an attempt at rebranding that serves the political aims of both governments but clashes with the realities of a country beset by violence and poverty. On his second day of a swing through Latin America, Obama emphasized optimism about Mexico's economic future and offered a broad endorsement of President Enrique Peña Nieto's reform agenda. Speaking to a crowd largely made up of high school and college students, Obama pushed the next generation of Mexicans to continue to demand change.

Beginning an energy push that will create major opportunities for U.S. companies, Mexico's energy minister said Wednesday that the government will authorize 11 new power-generation plants this year in Mexico, including one near the Mexico-California border that will have "the highest priority." Energy Minister Jesus Reyes Heroles said at a news conference here that the location of the Baja California plant and others will be disclosed in two weeks.