Mexico issued during the weekend new rules that would limit fuel imports of private firms in a controversial move seen as boosting the dominant position of state oil firm Pemex. Mexico’s leftist populist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador came to power with the promise to increase state support for Pemex and make the state-run major the pillar of a turnaround for the country’s declining oil production. López Obrador is also trying to make Mexico ‘energy independent’, and the latest legislation to restrict private companies’ ability to import refined oil products is seen as a move in that direction. Despite mounting debts and declining crude production, Pemex is focused on a US$8-billion refinery , Dos Bocas, planned for López Obrador’s home state of Tabasco. The planned refinery was a key campaign pledge of the president to reduce Mexico’s reliance on fuel and refined product imports, most of which come from […]