APPROACHING THE THIRD RAIL: MEXICO'S BIG PARTIES

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 MEXICO 002335 SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR U/S JEFFERY AND A/S SHANNON STATE FOR WHA/MEX, WHA/EPSC STATE FOR EB/ESC MCMANUS AND IZZO USDOC FOR 4320/ITA/MAC/WH/ONAFTA/GERI WORD USDOC FOR ITS/TD/ENERGY DIVISION INTERIOR FOR MMS/STEVE TEXTORIS, KEVIN KARL, RENEE ORR TREASURY FOR IA (LUYEN TRAN, RACHEL JARPE) DOE FOR INTL AFFAIRS KDEUTSCH, ALOCKWOOD, AND GWARD NSC FOR RICHARD MILES, DAN FISK STATE PASS TO USTR (EISSENSTAT/MELLE/SHIGETOMI) STATE PASS TO FEDERAL RESERVE (BORA DURDU) E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ENRG EPET ECON PGOV EFIN MX SUBJECT: APPROACHING THE THIRD RAIL: MEXICO'S BIG PARTIES BEGIN SERIOUS NEGOTIATIONS ON PEMEX REFORM REF: (A) MEXICO 1072 (B) MEXICO 531 (C) MEXICO 209 Summary -------------- ¶1. (SBU) With the conclusion of the Senate debates on the Calderon Administration's proposal for reforming the state-owned petroleum monopoly PEMEX, leaders of the three major parties (the right-leaning ruling National Action Party, or PAN; the more centrist opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI; and the leftist opposition Democratic Revolutionary Party, or PRD) have committed to working out a deal on this most politically sensitive of issues, and the general shape of the likely consensus is becoming clearer. The PRI has made public its reform proposal, which government and PAN leaders have been quick to praise as resembling in large measure the Administration's own, though industry sees the PRI proposal as more restrictive than the PAN's. Meanwhile, the PRD has more intra-party differences to iron out before it will be able to present its proposal, with a major fight likely between the die-hard obstructionists and the party's more moderate wing. Both the PRI and the PRD have legislators who will almost certainly oppose any deal, but the chiefs of the three major parties met last week to lay the groundwork for moving toward a vote on a package aimed at their common goal of "rescuing PEMEX without privatizing it" by early October in order to have time to incorporate changes from the reform into the annual budget and appropriations bills. They also decided to follow routine congressional procedure. The willingness of the three party leaders to negotiate via the legislative process undermined the political impact of the controversial public referendum on energy reform sponsored by the PRD that was held in Mexico City and nine other states. Attracting mostly PRD supporters, the referendum delivered predictably anti-reform results, though many criticized voting irregularities and the slanted questions. Industry sources say that the final product of this intensely political process is unlikely to result in the "rescue" of PEMEX, but will hopefully provide some additional flexibility and pave the way for further reform by finally breaking the taboo on addressing the challenges the energy sector faces. End summary. Parties Agree to Negotiate, Honor Normal Legislative Process -------------- -------------- ¶2. (U) Rapidly sinking oil production from existing fields, the inability to exploit new fields in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and the need to import 40 percent of Mexico's gasoline have sufficed to convince all three of Mexico's major political parties that they need to work together to rescue the tottering para-statal oil monopoly PEMEX. At the same time, no party wants to be seen as giving away the country's oil (which was nationalized in 1938, an event still celebrated in school books and popular consciousness as one of the great patriotic triumphs in Mexican history). Several days after the conclusion of the 71-day debate period in the Mexican Senate, the chiefs of the three main parties (German Martinez of the PAN, Beatriz Paredes of the PRI, and Guadalupe Acosta of the PRD) met to discuss how they would handle what all agreed was urgently needed reform to "rescue PEMEX without privatizing it." There are certainly divergent views among (and even within) the parties over how best to rescue PEMEX, and what does and does not constitute privatization, but the three leaders agreed that these issues will be hashed out via routine congressional procedures. That means that all proposals will be considered, that there will be no fast-track vote, and that the appropriate committees will draft the bills. The expectation is that an intense month-plus of congressional negotiations will lead to a consensus package being passed in early October. This is the latest that the issue can be dragged out, because the Mexican Constitution requires that the federal revenue and appropriations bills be approved at the end of October and MEXICO 00002335 002 OF 005 mid-November, respectively, and both of these will be heavily impacted by any reform to how PEMEX -- which currently provides approximately 40 percent of all government revenue -- operates. PRI Lays its Cards on the Table -------------- ¶3. (U) On July 23, the day after the Senate's extended debates on the Calderon Administration's PEMEX reform proposal had finally ended, Senator Manlio Fabio Beltrones, leader of the Institutional Revolutionary Party's (PRI) Senate bloc, presented his party's own proposal for reforming the Mexican energy sector. The major elements of the PRI proposal follow: -- Private Participation: PEMEX would be permitted to solicit private participation in various activities (e.g., exploration and drilling),but only via service contracts payable in cash. There would be no direct link between compensation to the contractor and the revenue stream generated by any hydro-carbons found and exploited. However, the proposal would allow for payment according to formulas with variables that are determined at the time of payment, rewards for successful results, and flexibility in compensating contractors for factors related to technological needs, level of difficulty, and quality of work. On the other hand, if a project like a deep sea exploration fails to find exploitable hydrocarbons, the contractor would be responsible for all or some of the associated costs. -- Mini-PEMEXes: Public subsidiaries of PEMEX would be established at the state level, with public financing to handle refining, transportation, distribution, and storage of oil and petroleum products. Private capital would be prohibited from operating these activities, but could be contracted for specific services or projects as per above. -- Transparency: PEMEX contracts would be subject to scrutiny by the Congress and the Secretariat of Public Function, and a committee for transparency and auditing would be created that would submit a report to the PEMEX Board every March. -- Greater Financial Autonomy: PEMEX would have greater decision-making power over its own budget. -- Board of Directors: Four independent, professional and full-time members would be added to the PEMEX board by the President and ratified by the Senate. For the PEMEX subsidiaries, two independent members would be appointed to each of their respective boards of directors. -- New Regulator: A National Oil Regulator would be created to issue technical regulation and protect and maximize advantage of Mexican reserves. This would be an independent entity. -- Citizen Bonds: PEMEX would make "bonos ciudadanos" available to all citizens. These debt instruments, worth about $10 each, would pay rates of return similar to that of PEMEX, and would be tradable among individuals, pension and investment funds, though with rules prohibiting a single entity from accumulating large volumes of these bonds. Overlap and Differences Between PAN and PRI Proposals -------------- -------------- ¶4. (U) President Calderon, Energy Secretary Georgina Kessel, Senate President Santiago Creel, PAN Senate Chief Gustavo Madero, other PAN leaders, and numerous commentators have publicly noted the many similarities between the PAN and PRI proposals, asserting that it forms a promising basis for reaching a mutually acceptable deal. In addition to increased transparency, budget and management autonomy, and MEXICO 00002335 003 OF 005 the creation of citizen bonds (ideas which no one opposes), both seek to provide greater legal certainty to private contractors and create flexible payment mechanisms while taking pains to dissociate such payments from hydrocarbon revenue streams. But there are also key differences. The PAN proposal does not include the PRI provision that would force private contractors to eat all or some of the costs incurred for failed deep water exploration projects, nor does it restrict in such detail the types of activities in which the private sector can participate. And the Calderon Administration would allow private capital to build, own, and operate refineries, pipelines, and the like (though maintaining government ownership of the petroleum being processed) while the PRI calls for new PEMEX subsidiaries to operate all these downstream activities. The PRI calls for national content preferences for private contractors, while the PAN would treat all private contractors equally. With regard to the PEMEX Board of Directors (currently made up of eleven people - six from the executive branch and five from the petroleum workers union),the Administration proposes four additional professional members to be appointed by the President, with two of them full-time and two of them part-time, while the PRI proposes that all four be full-time directors (and thus legally liable) and ratified by the Senate. Jesus Reyes-Heroles, the Calderon-appointed Director General of PEMEX, perhaps assuming the "bad cop" role to lay down markers of where the PAN plans to make a stand in the coming negotiations, publicly criticized the PRI's position on creating 100 percent-state owned PEMEX subsidiaries to operate all downstream activities, saying that a higher degree of private participation was necessary in those areas precisely because PEMEX had proven itself incapable of building and operating more refineries and pipelines. He also said that requiring Senate approval of the four additional professional board members would "politicize" their selection. The PRI proposal has also received criticism from a number of PRI legislators from the lower chamber of the Congress, who criticized the provisions on private sector participation as threatening to "privatize" Mexico's petroleum, the political equivalent in Mexico of touching the third rail. PRD Proposal Faces Internal Opposition -------------- ¶5. (SBU) While the PAN's legislators seem unified around the Calderon Administration proposal, the PRD faces even more daunting internal divisions than the PRI. A top staffer working for the Senate's PRD bloc told econoffs that his party already had its own "reasonable" proposal ready, but would hold off presenting it until early September in order to afford more time to achieve party consensus. He said that PRD moderates (including interim party chief Guadalupe Acosta and Senator Graco Ramirez, the ranking PRD member of the Senate's Energy Committee) were committed to a negotiated deal with the PAN and PRI and would not engage in seizing Congressional chambers or other such extraordinary tactics, but that die-hard rejectionists loyal to failed 2006 presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) were not yet resigned to pursuing dialogue (despite the fact that as a presidential candidate, AMLO had made some noises about reforming PEMEX). Our contact said that the idea was to work very hard between now and August 30 (the scheduled date for the 2008 PRD National Congress) to win over AMLO and company, or at least convince them not to rupture the party over energy reform. He characterized the PRD proposal as similar to the PRI's and PAN's in updating contracting regulations (including some flexible compensation schemes, which PRD rejectionists, like their PRI counterparts, characterize as akin to privatization),strengthening management and budget autonomy, and forming a new regulatory commission. In contrast to the PAN and PRI proposals, the PRD proposal will not support any participation of the private sector in downstream activities, wants to reduce the representation of the oil workers union on the PEMEX board MEXICO 00002335 004 OF 005 from five out of eleven to perhaps only two (the PRD considers the PRI-affiliated oil workers union to be highly corrupt and a big part of the problems that PEMEX faces),and would re-centralize the PEMEX spin-off companies (PEMEX Exploration and Production, PEMEX Refining, PEMEX Gas and Basic Petrochemicals, and PEMEX Petrochemicals) into one single corporate entity again. With regard to the downstream activities, he said that Hacienda -- the Mexican equivalent of the U.S. Treasury Department -- is sitting on $41 billion of frozen PEMEX earnings that would be sufficient to build four or five new refineries, obviating the need for any private capital in constructing the new capacity necessary to significantly reduce gasoline imports. (Note: It is our understanding that this reserve fund is needed to comply with the balanced budget requirement under Mexican law. End note). He also noted that the PRI's national content preferences were clearly intended to guarantee business to people like telecoms monopolist Carlos Slim, who owns IDEAL, a Mexican infrastructure company interested in providing oil services. Regardless of whether the PRD can overcome its own internal divisions or include some of its key provisions in the final bill, our contact predicted that energy reform in one shape or another would be passed early this fall. Public Referendum Fizzles -------------- ¶6. (U) The PRD attempted to gain leverage over the energy debate by investing considerable money and political capital in carrying out a public referendum in Mexico City and nine other states on July 27. The referendum featured two questions: 1) Should the petroleum industry be a private rather than a public enterprise? 2) Should the government's energy reform proposal be approved? In Mexico City, approximately one million voters participated in this exercise, with over 80 percent answering "no" to both questions. This result surprised no one, as few PAN or PRI supporters were interested in participating in this clearly partisan and non-binding referendum. Numerous politicians (including some from the moderate wing of the PRD) and commentators criticized the leading nature of the questions, and many cast doubt on the election itself, noting that the last election the PRD ran -- that for PRD president earlier this year -- had to be annulled due to myriad irregularities that left no clear winner. (Note: Guadalupe Acosta was not a candidate for the post and is serving only as interim party chief. End note). Given the aforementioned criticisms of the referendum's substance and process, the public commitment of the moderate PRD leadership to negotiating a reform package with the PAN and PRI, as well as the fact that turnout was low relative to national elections, the political significance of the referendum was limited. That probably won't stop moderate PRD politicians from referencing the referendum in negotiations with their PAN and PRI counterparts, just as it probably won't stop PRD radicals from using the referendum as justification for whatever course of action they end up deciding to pursue. But it clearly failed to provide AMLO and his supporters a public mandate for rejecting reform. Industry View: Substantively Light, Politically Heavy -------------- -------------- ¶7. (SBU) A major U.S. oil company representative told econoffs that the PAN proposal provisions on private sector participation in the oil sector, while not ideal, were written in very general terms that would allow sufficient flexibility to attract the interest of large, international oil companies (IOC) like Shell, ExxonMobil, and BP, in exploring possible upstream activities. She said that the IOCs were the only ones who could provide the kind of capital, technology, and integrated project management that Mexico needs to reverse its declining oil production. The PRI proposal, on the other hand, includes detailed MEXICO 00002335 005 OF 005 prohibitions on strategic alliances and the booking of Mexican oil on private company books, as well as the aforementioned national content preferences, all of which seem specifically designed to encourage the participation of service companies like Halliburton, Schlumberger, and Carlos Slim's IDEAL, while keeping the integrated IOCs out of the picture. The problem with this approach, our contact asserted, was that the service companies do not bring any new investment with them and simply comply with their contract obligations and take their money. She noted that the PRI proposal to force private contractors to eat the costs of something like a deep sea drilling that found no oil or gas was completely fanciful, as no service company would ever accept such terms. Only the IOCs are willing to accept risk, as long they get to enjoy the rewards when the risk pans out. For that reason, her company is hoping that the PAN can overcome PRI (and PRD) opposition to more flexible rules on private sector participation that leave the door open to some artfully disguised version of risk contracts. She proffered no prediction on how this round of reform would end up treating private participation, but said that the improvements to PEMEX oversight and managerial and financial autonomy would be positive, and any reform at all would break the decades-long taboo on talking about and dealing with the energy sector's problems. She did predict that if an overly narrow energy package is all that can be passed this year, there would be another round of reform in the next couple of years when it became clear that Mexico's production and gasoline import woes had not been solved. Comment -------------- ¶8. (SBU) President Calderon seems prepared to yet again succeed in moving forward, however cautiously, on reforming a major structural barrier to Mexican economic growth. Given the nationalist neuralgia surrounding oil in this country, this will be a major political achievement. With the passage of some kind of energy reform this year a near certainty, the question now is how far the reform will go in giving PEMEX the flexibility it needs to turn itself around. The next two months will witness a delicate political dance among the three parties as the PAN and PRI jockey to take credit for being the more responsible and reasonable actor, while the PRD merely tries to be relevant while avoiding a major internal meltdown. Given the PRI's robust occupation of the middle ground and the still powerful ring of the "no privatization" mantra, it seems tactically best positioned to win many of the arguments that will take up most of the congressional negotiators' time. This might prove of immediate benefit to the PRI during next year's mid-term congressional election. On the other hand, if a final reform package ends up being too watered down to solve the serious problems that PEMEX faces, that could prove to be a political liability. We anticipate the coming months of backroom debate and public posturing will produce political theater of the highest order. From now until President Calderon signs something into law, the Embassy strongly recommends that all USG officials remain quiet and enjoy the show. End comment. Visit Mexico City's Classified Web Site at http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/mexicocity and the North American Partnership Blog at http://www.intelink.gov/communities/state/nap / WILLIAMS