Editor’s Note: NGI’s Mexico Gas Price Index, a leader tracking Mexico natural gas market reform, is offering the following column by Eduardo Prud’homme as part of a regular series on understanding this process.

Canadian utility Atco Pipelines SA de CV, like many other North American companies specialized in the energy sector, decided to embark on an important project in Mexico’s natural gas sector during the previous administration. 

It started by requesting a natural gas transportation permit from the Comisión Reguladora de Energía (CRE). The project was part of the strategy to strengthen the gas infrastructure network, as outlined in the 2013-2018 National Development Plan that intended that the financing of this strategy would come from the private sector.

Atco had...