The front-runner in July’s presidential election wants to upend Mexico’s newly-opened energy sector. Andres Manuel López Obrador, a leftist nationalist with a comfortable lead in the polls, has rattled investors by calling for a temporary freeze in new private investment in exploration and production of oil. But it is his plan to shift federal spending to refining from exploration and production that critics say could have the most dramatic consequences for the Mexican economy and U.S. refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast. Eventually, Mr. López Obrador wants to completely halt exports of crude oil—a critical source of revenue for the country—because Mexico has become too dependent on the U.S. for refined gasoline, said Rocio Nahle, a congresswoman from his Morena party whom the candidate has named as his Secretary of Energy should he win. “We’re going to change the energy policy of this country, that’s a […]