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Mexico energy reform debate

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July 30 (Reuters) - Latest developments as Mexico's ruling conservatives court opposition lawmakers to approve an energy reform to allow more private investment in the state-controlled oil industry in hopes of bolstering falling output.

Compiled from Reuters stories, Mexican newspaper reports, television and radio.

** Mexican state-ran oil monopoly Pemex said on Wednesday it expects to end 2008 with crude oil production of around 2.8 million barrels per day, below its initial goal for the year of 3 million bpd. [nN30463234]

** Mexico will struggle to restore flagging oil output before 2020 to recent levels of 3 million barrels per day, even if the government pushes through its plan to boost foreign investment in production efforts, the government said on Tuesday. [nN29348047]

** Gustavo Madero, Senate coordinator for the ruling National Action Party (PAN), sys there is a risk of Congress approving a cosmetic energy reform that would not resolve Pemex's underlying problems, daily newspaper Reforma reported. Reforma quoted Madero saying he hoped the reform "has substance, that it resolves Pemex's problems in a real way and is not purely political or cosmetic."

** The government has launched a TV and radio campaign to underscore the fact that the United States already operates hundreds of oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico. The ads say it is time Mexico did the same. Energy Minister Georgina Kessel says that since January, the U.S. and Mexican governments have shared information and interchanged diplomatic notes about cross-border oil fields in the Gulf, El Universal newspaper said.

** The interim president of the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), Guadalupe Acosta, says his party will present its energy reform to Congress despite criticism from the PRD's former presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who does not recognize the government of President Felipe Calderon. "We are consulting on all fronts, but there will be an initiative, that is a fact; there won't be anyone to stop the PRD from presenting an initiative," said Acosta in Reforma.

** The PAN is seeking agreements across party lines on energy reform, said Hector Larios, party coordinator in the lower house. "We are talking and we are enthusiastic about building bridges with congressional groups where we can," he said in Milenio daily. (Reporting by Tomas Sarmiento in Mexico City; Editing by David Gregorio)