CURBING THE COMPETITION: MEXICO’S FUEL IMPORT CHANGES

Eduardo Lopez looks at the implications for importers Upon gaining power in 2018, the administration of Mexican president López Obrador launched a vociferous and strident rhetorical war against the private sector, most notably in the energy industry. The president’s ire has been directed mainly at Mexico’s energy opening, made possible in December 2013 by a long-awaited yet long-delayed constitutional reform. A salient feature of this reform was to impose a modicum of competition on the former state-owned monopolies (Pemex in the oil industry and CFE in electricity) through so-called ‘regulatory asymmetry’, which forced both companies to relinquish some of their existing market positions in order to allow the participation of new, private players. Predictably, both companies lost market share in different businesses. Pemex, in particular, has faced strong downstream competition – in logistics (the importation and distribution of liquid fuels) and retail (service stations). Indeed, private companies now control roughly 50%, 30% and 25% of Mexico’s total diesel, gasoline and jet fuel imports, respectively. Moreover, over one third of all service stations now display...