*Mexico’s President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum has announced that Víctor Rodríguez Padilla, an academic, will serve as the CEO of the state-run oil company Pemex when her government takes office on 1 October. Sheinbaum described Rodríguez as “a defender of the nation’s energy companies and their sovereignty, with 42 years of experience in this sector”. Rodríguez highlighted the need for close collaboration with the finance ministry (SHCP) to “stabilise the financial situation” of Pemex, the world’s most indebted oil company. He also said that while it was necessary to “maintain the basis of energy needs and that is oil and gas”, Mexico also needed to move forward with the energy transition, stating that, “we are going to make a massive effort in developing renewable energy sources”. Rodríguez, a physicist with degrees in energy engineering and energy economics, has long-standing ties with Sheinbaum, a fellow scientist. He most recently led energy systems studies in the engineering department of Mexico’s national university (Unam) and has also held positions advising congress and other governmental bodies on energy policy, as well as serving as a consultant for the United Nations (UN) Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Eclac), Latin American Energy Organisation (Olade), international NGO Oxfam, and local environmental protection organisation, the Iniciativa Climática de México.
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