Mexico: Pushing gas

STATE-OWNED Pemex has launched its second round of bidding for multiple-service contracts (MSC) in the Burgos basin, in the northeast. The new round, which, like the first, will seek to develop gas production in the basin, will be followed by the opening of non-Burgos acreage in 2005, where foreign companies will be invited to develop oil and gas fields never tackled before by the private sector. The MSCs were designed by Pemex to involve foreign capital in the country's oil and gas sector—the constitution prohibits any private or foreign ownership of hydrocarbons. Under the terms of the contracts, foreign and private-sector companies provide a range of services to Pemex to develop the prosp