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Mexico’s Centro Nacional de Control del Gas Natural (Cenagas) and Comisión Reguladora de Energía (CRE) must prioritize the interests of national oil company Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) and state power company Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE), Cenagas Director Elvira Daniel Kabbaz Zaga said in a recent radio interview.

Daniel, an appointee of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, told Radio UNAM that the 2013 market-liberalizing energy reform passed under the previous government “did not improve our lives,” and that natural gas transport contracts for seven delayed pipelines tendered by CFE are unfair to the company.

Under the contracts’ force-majeure clauses, CFE must make fixed-capacity payments to the developers for the pipelines, despite the fact that they are not yet in service. For this reason, López Obrador has repeatedly called for the contracts to be renegotiated.

Created in 2014 under the auspices of the energy reform, Cenagas operates and allocates capacity on Mexico’s Sistrangas natural gas pipeline grid, a collection of pipeline systems formerly operated by Pemex. The CRE, meanwhile, oversees permitting and regulations in the midstream natural gas segment, and is roughly analogous to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

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