Pemex takes stock. (Trade Talk).

Long off-limits to investors due to a constitutional ban, Mexico's state-run oil monopoly, Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), may be moving toward partial privatization. Legislator Guillermo Hopkins floated the idea of a stock offering last December. Now, a bill is working its way through Congressional committees and could surface for a vote as early as May, Hopkins tells LATIN TRADE.

Pemex, with 2001 annual sales of US$46 billion, has been highly active lately, issuing $2.5 billion in debt on international markets. In part, heavy reliance on this financing has to do with restrictions on private investment in the Mexican oil industry. Successive Mexican governments have skirted legal restrictions, opening gasoline stations, petrochemical and natural gas activities to entrepreneurs, but none has dared to change the Constitution to allow big BUCKS to flow into exploration and production.

The measure proposed by Hopkins, a member political party Partido Institucional Revolucionario (PRI), could pave the way for a 10% stock offering that would be worth an estimated $19 billion.

However, any Pemex stock issue would require a change in the Mexican Constitution. Hopkins and PRI would need to form an alliance with President Vicente Fox's Partido Accion Nacional or the leftist Partido de la Revolucion Democratica to get the required two-thirds vote in Congress. That's highly unlikely in the run-up to mid-term Congressional elections in July.