Mexico’s Centro Nacional de Control del Gas Natural (Cenagas) has launched the Consulta Publica 2019 process to gauge current and potential demand for natural gas throughout the country.

Cenagas, which operates the Sistrangas national pipeline network, will use the results of the consulta publica, or public consultation, to draft the first iteration of its 2019-2024 transport expansion plan.

Energy ministry Sener approved Cenagas’s third and final revision of the 2015-2019 expansion plan in March 2018. Cenagas is required to update the five-year plan annually as part of a larger mandate to ensure the optimal use of Mexico’s pipeline grid.

The expansion plan mainly centers around projects outside the Sistrangas network that are tendered to private sector developers. These projects include the seven delayed pipelines commissioned by state power utility Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) that have drawn criticism from President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

He and CFE general director Manuel Bartlett have said that CFE should not have to make fixed capacity payments to the developers of the delayed projects, which face force majeure setbacks ranging from lawsuits to adverse weather conditions.