On speaking to management today, they could only state that the Letter of Intent is still sitting on the desk of the Exploration and Production Manager, Mr Lozada Aguilar waiting to be signed. Nothing has changed. The Letter of Intent and the overall deal as constructed was based on a counterproposal presented to ROE by Pemex which ROE accepted so ROE management can see no reason why it would not be signed.
The most likely reason it is not signed, in my opinion, is political.
With the announcement by Nahle of the new business focused cabinet and then that the Government was analyzing 100 to 137 projects with the private sector it is quite likely that the ROE project is caught up in this process.
Alfonso Roma who is Obrado’s Chief of staff told the press that the special cabinet will announce in about 3 weeks which projects are given the immediate go ahead.
Of the projects being considered, their will be a group of approved projects, a group that are still under consideration and some that get rejected.
In my opinion it is quite possible that this new cabinet does not want to announce individual projects but wants to do a big media splash and announce a large group all at once. The ROE project, hopefully, will be announced then but ROE Management has no idea. ROE management has been told nothing.