Mexico’s AMLO vows to review oil contracts

A day after Mexican regulators auctioned 19 deepwater blocks, presidential hopeful Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Thursday reiterated that he would review E&P contracts signed since the implementation of Mexico’s energy reform in 2014.

The candidate of the National Regeneration Movement, known in the country as AMLO, has expressed concern regarding the impact that the domestic oil and gas industry’s opening will have on Mexico. López Obrador has topped recent polls.

“We are going to review contracts; the official banditry will end,” López Obrador told reporters. “The contracts they are signing are, above all, for financial speculation, not to produce, not to extract oil, not to develop the industry.”

AMLO has repeatedly said contracts would need to be appraised to ensure that they did not harm the interests of the country. The frontrunner’s comments on the oil and gas industry have caused some investors to speculate that parts of Mexico’s energy reform legislation would be in jeopardy if he were to win the July election.