Mexico has delayed the auction for its prized deepwater oil assets and sweetened bid terms after its inaugural tender to open its oil sector to private investors flopped two weeks ago. The call for bids in deepwater fields and subsequent opening of data rooms had been delayed by two months and was now likely to occur at the end of September, Joaquin Coldwell, energy minister, told local television channel Foro TV on Tuesday night. The energy ministry is also revising corporate guarantee rules that the oil industry had viewed as being too onerous, allowing companies to make a second bid if their initial offer fails to meet a government set minimum, and it could scrap a rule prohibiting a bidding consortium from replacing a preselected operator that pulls out. Auctions planned for shale prospects have also been postponed without a specific date set.