Mexico energy debate plays out in soap opera, show

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A fierce debate in Mexico over oil has found its way into a soap opera and an entertainment show as the country grapples with whether to allow foreign companies a place in the energy sector.

Many in President Felipe Calderon's National Action Party want a new energy law that allows state-owned monopoly Pemex to form alliances with foreign companies to speed up entry into the crucial deep-water oil sector.

But the leftist opposition strongly opposes that.

The issue, one of the most sensitive in Mexico, turned up on Televisa's soap "Palabra de Mujer" (Woman's Word). A female television producer character in the soap asked a colleague in a recent chapter what she thought of making a program about deep-sea drilling.

"Do you think women would be interested in that?," the colleague asked. "Of course, because it's very important for the country," the producer said.

An anchor at rival broadcaster TV Azteca's "Va que Va" weekend entertainment show mentioned that that oil is a treasure for all Mexicans, the kind of statement made by politicians across the board.

A Televisa spokesman declined comment on whether the soap opera oil mention was product placement by the government and TV Azteca could not be reached.

Mexico lacks the technology to drill deep-water wells but needs to find new ways to access oil reserves as production at its huge, but aging, Cantarell well wanes.

Pemex recently splashed self-branded spots highlighting the need to pump oil from hard-to-reach locations in the Gulf of Mexico across newspaper web sites and in assorted television and radio slots.