MEXICO’S congress approved a comprehensive energy reform today that will break more than seven decades of state monopoly in the country’s oil and gas industry.

The package of new laws will now go to the desk of President Enrique Pena Nieto, who has made energy privatisation the cornerstone of his economic policy. 

President Pena Nieto’s government has already rewritten telecommunications, education and election laws.

The Mexican government has advocated opening the country’s oil and gas sector to bring in billions of dollars in new investment.

It claims that private companies with the expertise and technology lacking in state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos would be able to exploit the country’s vast shale and deep-water reserves.

The new rules also authorise private production of electricity.

Private exploitation of Mexico’s oil and gas drilling will be allowed for the first time since the industry was nationalised 76 years ago.

Leftwingers in congress contend that the privatisation of the industry will export the profits while saddling taxpayers with the legacy of past corruption and mismanagement at state petrochemicals firm Pemex.

The most controversial parts of the energy overhaul include a provision to transfer about one-third of the state oil company’s enormous pension liabilities to the books of the federal government. 

The pension debt, including similar pension liabilities at the state electricity company, totals around $151 billion (£89.7bn) — about 10 per cent of Mexico’s GDP.

Opposition senators say any graft, malfeasance or corruption in those pension accounts should be cleared up before taxpayers are saddled with the debt.