Mexico ruling party sees energy reform delayed

MEXICO CITY, April 14 (Reuters) - Protests in Mexico's Congress will likely delay approval of a government energy reform plan to boost private investment in the struggling oil industry, a senior ruling party lawmaker said on Monday.

President Felipe Calderon's conservative party is seen able to win the 50 percent majority it needs to pass an oil bill after a centrist opposition party said last week it liked the general look of the proposal.

But left-wing protests against the plan have paralyzed Congress and the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, has said it is not in a hurry to approve the bill before the spring session of Congress wraps up on April 30.

"It's clear we can't do it during this period of sessions," National Action Party Sen. Santiago Creel, who leads the governing PAN in the upper house, told Mexican radio.

Mexico is the world's No. 5 producer of crude and a top U.S. supplier but state-run oil company Pemex is not finding new reserves fast enough to stave off a decline in output.

The left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, says planned changes to allow state oil monopoly Pemex to offer performance-based incentive fees in service contracts would amount to a creeping privatization.

The party's militant former presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is leading rallies against Calderon's proposal while protesting PRD lawmakers have camped out on the floors of both houses of Congress since last Thursday.

Calderon could pass the law without PRD votes, but the party is vowing to block congressional sessions indefinitely unless other parties agree to open a broad discussion that would bring in outside experts and run until August.

Party leaders in Congress scheduled a meeting for later on Monday that will try to clear protesters from the podiums by seeking a compromise on how long an energy debate could last.