Mexico's energy regulator said Tuesday it was canceling its remaining oil block auctions for private firms, the centerpiece of the country's landmark energy reform, now under attack by new President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
The National Hydrocarbons Commission (CNH) said it was scrapping the two pending auctions because the energy ministry had asked it to withdraw the 46 blocks up for grabs so it could "review energy policy and evaluate the results and progress" made under the 2013 reform.
"Since the totality of the areas under consideration in each auction have been excluded... we have approved the cancellation of the auctions in question," it said in a statement.
The CNH had already suspended the auctions after Lopez Obrador won a landslide election victory in July.
Former president Enrique Pena Nieto launched the ambitious energy reform in a bid to breathe new life into Mexico's oil sector, where production had plummeted under 76 years of monopoly by state firm Pemex.
But Lopez Obrador, an anti-establishment leftist and energy nationalist, has criticized the opening of the sector to private and foreign companies as a corruption-riddled "farse."
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content