Petroleos Mexicanos is in talks with the U.S. Department of Commerce to import 100,000 barrels a day of light crude to increase gasoline production and improve refining by Mexico ’s state-owned oil producer. Pemex, as the world’s ninth-largest oil producer is known, would mix the imports with its heavy oil, the Mexico City-based company said today in an e-mailed statement. Negotiations with the U.S. about the proposal, which was presented last year, are continuing, Pemex said. Some companies have called for the U.S. to end its 40-year prohibition on oil exports, saying booming domestic output reduces the need to keep supplies at home. U.S. oil production has increased by 66 percent in the past five years, and a majority of that growth is in light oil from shale rock. The U.S. bans most exports of unrefined crude, with exceptions such as shipments to Canada. The U.S. exported a record […]