Mexico's ICA eyes Pemex infrastructure boom

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican construction giant ICA, a big winner from Mexico's infrastructure drive, expects state oil company Pemex to take over leadership in rolling out new mega-projects, the company's chief financial officer said.

Pemex is poised to kick off several major projects including clean gasoline and diesel fuel plants at its six refineries, several cryogenic gas processing plants and a planned new oil refinery that could cost $10 billion.

"Pemex is reactivating," Alonso Quintana told the Reuters Latin American Investment Summit on Thursday.

"They are finally rolling out projects that had been up in the air, like the clean gasoline program."

ICA (ICA.MX) (ICA.N) does much of its work in the energy industry through a 50-50 joint venture with U.S. engineering giant Fluor Corp (FLR.N).

The company boosted its order backlog to approximately 40 billion pesos last year and is projecting revenues to grow as much as 30 percent in 2009 as work on major projects, such as a new Metro line in Mexico City and a major hydroelectric dam, progress.

"It's a big challenge (to keep our order book stable), but yes it is possible, especially with Pemex as the driver," Quintana said.

The easing of the credit crunch, which slammed Mexico in October of last year, is also making new infrastructure projects -- such as highway concessions -- easier, Quintana said.

"We see banks getting more interested in getting into projects," Quintana said.

"We're continuing to work closely with our bankers, with Santander, with BBVA, mainly with those two because they are most interested in financing in pesos."

Spain's BBVA (BBVA.MC) owns Mexico's biggest bank while its compatriot Banco Santander (SAN.MC) is the number three bank in Mexico.

Securing longer-term bond financing to allow bank lenders to exit from projects remains a challenge. ICA is still working to secure long-term financing to pay off bank loans associated with a major highway project that is currently financed by a syndicated loan.

However ICA faces little immediate pressure to refinance the loan as it has a number of years left to run, Quintana said.