MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s president said Thursday that he has offered to buy an American company’sPresident Andrés Manuel López Obrador said a formal offer would be presented to Alabama-based Vulcan Materials. The company operated gravel extraction pits at the Yucatan peninsula site beforeThe company said it had not yet received the president's proposal or responded to the idea.
López Obrador said his much lower offer was fair and based on a government assessment. He said the most attractive part of the property was the freight shipping dock, which he plans to turn into a dock for cruise ships. As the only significant port facility on that stretch of the Caribbean coast, the dock would also be useful for transporting gravel and cement for the president'sLópez Obrador said he also wants to use the flooded gravel pits that the company dug out of hundreds of acres of the limestone soil as “swimming pools” or an"ecotourism" area that would be operated as a concession by a private operator.
“Before I leave , this is going to be resolved, one way or another,” he said, adding that the company would have to agree to drop its damages-seeking cases before the arbitration panel as part of the deal. In 2021, Mexico's environment ministry closed Vulcan’s limestone quarry and forbade the company from exporting stone that was long used in U.S. and Mexican building projects. The president accused the company of extracting rock and exporting it without proper permits. Vulcan said it had the needed permits.