On Wednesday, the government will hold the first in a series of petroleum auctions that will help open the energy industry, bringing in an estimated $62.5 billion by 2018 and increasing annual output by 500,000 barrels a day. The exploration and production contracts, the first since then- President Lazaro Cardenas nationalized the fields in 1938, will end the monopoly of state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex.