Curtis Advises Pemex Subsidiaries on Formation of Petroleum Products Joint Venture

Curtis represented P.M.I. Services North America, Inc. and P.M.I. Trading Limited, subsidiaries of Petróleos Mexicanos, the Mexican national oil company (Pemex), in the formation of a joint venture with Magellan Midstream Partners, L.P. and certain of its affiliates (Magellan) to construct an 840,000 barrel petroleum products terminal outside of Houston, Texas. P.M.I. Services and Magellan each will own a fifty percent interest in the joint venture company, Texas Frontera LLC, which will build and operate the facility. The terminal's capacity will be leased to P.M.I Trading.As part of the venture, P.M.I. Trading entered into a long-term through-put agreement with Magellan to ship refined products through Magellan's Longhorn Pipeline System. The system runs from Houston to El Paso, Texas, where it connects to a pipeline completed recently by P.M.I. Services that crosses the border into Mexico at Ciudad Juarez. The joint venture enhances Pemex's capacity to supply gasoline from the U.S. to markets in Northern Mexico, including products refined at the 340,000 barrel-per-day fuels refinery in Deer Park, Texas jointly owned by Pemex and Shell Oil Company. The transaction closed on July 27, 2010.The Curtis team was led by partner Daniel Lenihan and counsel Kim Sheikh with support from associates Cristina Ramos in Houston and Oreste Cipolla in New York. Tax matters were handled by partner Eduardo Cukier and associate Kristin Konschnik. Partner Andrew Otis advised on environmental matters.