MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced he has picked Miguel Angel Maciel to be his next energy minister, less than a year before the end of his six-year government, he wrote in a Monday post on social media.
Maciel will replace Rocio Nahle, who served as energy chief and chair of the board of state-owned oil company Pemex since the beginning of Lopez Obrador’s term in late 2018.
Nahle stepped down on Friday to enter the race for governor of her home state of Veracruz, one of Mexico’s top oil and gas producers.
Maciel has previously served as deputy energy minister, and Lopez Obrador stressed in his post on X that the petroleum engineer by training is trusted “due to his honesty and proven convictions in favor of national sovereignty.”
Nahle formally left her job as minister before the president’s most important energy infrastructure project, the Olmeca oil refinery in his home state Tabasco, has come online.
Lopez Obrador tasked Nahle with overseeing the project, which is running behind schedule and over budget.
Located in the Gulf coast port of Dos Bocas, the refinery will be Pemex’s biggest such facility when it does begin commercial production.
The project, along with the full acquisition of the Houston-based Deer Park refinery, is designed to help wean Mexico off of its decades-long dependency on imported motor fuels, a major policy goal of Lopez Obrador.
(Reporting by Noe Torres and Stefanie Eschenbacher; Editing by Valentine Hilaire)
