Mexico plays hardball

Regional outlier initially baulked at Opec’s demand to scale back barrels, before bleeding oil revenues forced a rethink

Mexico proved an unusually stubborn negotiator during last week’s Opec+ alliance crisis talks in Vienna. President Andres Lopez Obrador refused to revise down production targets, despite the oil price crash’s heavy financial toll on state oil firm Pemex. Indeed, confidence that Mexico would consent to the cuts was at one point so low that US president Donald Trump weighed in with an offer of support to help it achieve the 10pc supply drop. Mexico eventually accepted a 100,000bl/d reduction, a cut significantly short of the 400,000bl/d that Opec and its allies originally demanded. The decrease represented half the volume pledged by Latin American rival Petrobras, despite the Brazilian company