Mexican President Defiant in Row With Canada Over Pipeline Contracts
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador pushed back on Thursday against Canadian concerns that gas pipeline contracts awarded under his predecessor might not be honored, saying the terms of the agreements were "abusive" toward the state.
Mexican state power utility CFE said this week it would negotiate a more fair resolution to contractual disputes over several pipelines being built by companies including Mexico's IEnova and Canada's TC Energy.
IEnova, a unit of U.S.-based Sempra Energy, says the CFE is seeking arbitration over a contract it signed in partnership with TC Energy to build a $2.5 billion pipeline from Texas to the Mexican Gulf coast port of Tuxpan.
The Canadian ambassador to Mexico, Pierre Alarie, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday that the Mexican government appears "not to wish to respect natural gas pipeline contracts," and said he was deeply concerned about the signal being sent.
Lopez Obrador, who in February vowed the contracts would be honored, said it was natural for Alarie to defend Canada's interests but took a defiant tone when asked about the dispute during his regular morning press conference.
"Here it was stated that those contracts were abusive. I called them unfair contracts because they were handed over with all the benefits for the companies," he said, arguing that their terms would lead to the ruin of the CFE.
"A deal will be reached because we too have to defend the assets and the interests of the Mexican people," he said.
The row has revived concerns that Lopez Obrador's government could put in jeopardy contracts signed under previous administrations, the last six of which the president has characterized as part of a corrupt "neo-liberal" era.
He has been highly critical of the government of predecessor Enrique Pena Nieto, who sought to lift economic growth by opening up the energy sector to private capital, an approach that Lopez Obrador has so far roundly rejected.
Separately, Mexico's Grupo Carso, an infrastructure firm controlled by billionaire Carlos Slim that also is involved in the pipeline disputes, said in a statement it would analyze an arbitration request it had received from the CFE.
Lopez Obrador rejected the suggestion that the spat could interfere with ratification of United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), a new North American trade deal the Mexican Senate approved earlier this month.
Canada and the United States must still ratify USMCA.
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