Mexico To Ease Energy Costs

Mexican President Vicente Fox on Monday announced that some measures to ease energy costs and increase the country's energy independence have been invented.

The measures include limiting price increases on gas and electricity and reforms to allow more private investment in exploration and production of natural gas.

"This has made evident the vulnerability of our energy supply structure," Fox said. "The lack of deep reforms in the energy sector seriously limits the capability to take advantage of our underground natural gas."

Fox said he will propose a change in the constitution to let private companies explore for and produce Mexican natural gas that is not associated with oil fields.

The government has been seeking legal reforms that would let the state oil company, Pemex, ally itself with private companies to exploit reserves in deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, for which it lacks technology. But Fox's reform proposals have largely been blocked by an opposition-dominated Congress.