DRILL, BABY, DRILL: Mexico aims to boost crude output by 45 percent before 2025.

Speaking from Ciudad del Carmen, a Gulf coast city 50 miles (85 kilometers) from an oil field that sustained Mexican public finances for decades, Lopez Obrador said the goal is for Petroleos Mexicanos to raise crude output to 2.4 million barrels per day, from the current 1.65 million barrels per day.

“We are going to invest where we know there’s petroleum and where it costs us less to extract it,” he told a jubilant crowd of oil workers.

Lopez Obrador previously announced plans to invest 75 billion pesos ($3.65 billion) of savings from a government austerity program into Pemex.

The company has struggled to come up with funds in recent years amid mounting pension obligations, high tax rates, rampant fuel theft and inefficiencies.

If he were really serious, he’d push for privatizing Pemex.