The New York Times
November 29, 2000

DuPont Mexico Director Is Named to Run Pemex

          By GRAHAM GORI

          MEXICO CITY, Nov. 28 — President-elect Vicente Fox Quesada has named the director of DuPont Mexico to run and reshape Mexico's state- run oil
          monopoly, Pemex.

          Raúl Muñoz Leos, a chemical engineer by training and the president of DuPont Mexico since 1988, said after accepting the post Monday night that Pemex
          must "make its operations more efficient in order to create additional resources to reinvest" in new infrastructure and increased production.

          Since its nationalization in 1938, Mexico's oil industry has been a source of pride for the country, proof that it can exploit its natural resources on its own. It
          also has, however, been widely criticized by industry analysts for inefficiency, corruption in its highest ranks and operating more like a government
          bureaucracy than a business.

          Pemex is the world's largest oil company in terms of employees, with about 130,000, but ranks only fourth in terms of production, said David Shields, an oil
          industry analyst in Mexico City.

          Mr. Fox has emphasized the need to court foreign investment to modernize Pemex and meet the nation's energy demands. But he also promised not to
          privatize the company, a move that could have been politically unpopular.

          Mr. Muñoz will have to modernize the company's infrastructure without the immediate benefit of proposed changes in Mexico's Constitution that would permit
          the partial privatization of Pemex.

          He said in his acceptance speech Monday night that he would work to invest a larger percentage of the company's revenue in infrastructure modernization.
          Today, almost all of the company's profits are channeled to the government.