Mexico taps LatAm consortium to build gas pipeline

Mexico's state oil company Pemex has tapped an international consortium to build a $1.2 billion natural gas pipeline linking northern and central Mexico, it said Wednesday.
The consortium awarded the concession to build the pipeline is made up of Brazil's Odebrecht, Argentina-based Techint and Mexico's Arendal.
The pipeline, called Ramones II, will be able to move 2.1 billion cubic feet of gas a day, and run from the northern state of Nuevo Leon to San Luis Potosi in central Mexico, a distance of about 450 kilometers (280 miles).
Pemex said it "will contribute to strengthening national industry, be an important factor in increasing electric power generation and improve natural gas distribution to residential and commercial customers."
The government of President Enrique Pena Nieto last year pushed through a constitutional reform that ends a 75-year-old state monopoly over the energy sector, opening it to private Mexican and foreign investors.
The government's stated aim has been to modernize the industry which has seen oil production tank in recent years under Pemex.