Mexico Lawmakers May Support Pemex's Budget Increase to Record $31 Billion
Petroleos Mexicanos, Latin America’s largest oil producer, may get enough Congressional support to increase its budget by 54 percent to a record next year, lawmakers from the country’s three largest parties said.
“We see this favorably as long as Pemex’s budget prioritizes investment,” David Penchyna, one of two ranking members from the Institutional Revolutionary Party in the lower house, said today in an interview at Bloomberg’s Mexico City office. “We want a clear, sharp proposal from Pemex that focuses on investment and cuts operating expenses.”
Mexico, the second-largest oil supplier to the U.S., aims to boost oil output to 3.3 million barrels a day by 2024. State- owned Pemex presented a budget proposal of 400 billion pesos ($31 billion) for 2011 to the Finance Ministry, Hector Moreira, a company board member, said July 19.
“No one in their right mind would oppose a budget increase,” Armando Rios, a lawmaker for the opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution, said in the same interview. The only problem would be if the proposal increases “expenditures for the union or the company current account,” he said.
“We don’t see any problem with a budget increase for Pemex,” Carlos Alberto Perez, minority whip from President Felipe Calderon’s National Action Party, said in the same interview.
After evaluation by the Finance Ministry, the 2011 proposal must be submitted to Congress as part of the government’s budget plan scheduled to be voted on by Nov. 15.
To contact the reporter on this story: Carlos M. Rodriguez in Mexico City at carlosmr@bloomberg.net.
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