Peter De Montmollin

As Mexico’s historic energy reform approaches its five-year anniversary at the end of 2018, hydrocarbons production by companies independent from the country’s long-dominant national oil company remain in the embryonic stage.July output at fields not associated with Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) averaged 3,983 b/d of crude and 46 MMcf/d of gas, versus national totals of 1.84 million b/d and 3.63 Bcf/d (excluding nitrogen content), according to the latest figures from upstream regulator Comision Nacional de Hidrocarburos (CNH).These figures do not include the international companies that have signed farmout agreements with Pemex to jointly develop blocks, or the pre-reform service contracts that the state company is migrating to the new legal regime.Since the Mexican Congress approved the reforms in 2013, the administration of Enrique Peña Nieto, who leaves office in December, has awarded more than 100 exploration and production (E&P) contracts to private and foreign operators.Some of these contracts have already yielded discoveries, but few have reached commercial production, as the CNH data show. They also include 21 gas-rich blocks tendered last year at the jointly held 2.2 and 2.3 bidding rounds for onshore acreage.“Really none of the areas from the gas-focused rounds have begun producing yet,” Pablo Zarate told NGI’s Mexico GPI. He is director of information at Pulso Energetico, a think tank supported by Amexhi, the Mexican private sector association of oil and gas companies. “These are processes that will take some time, although the rounds were quite successful.”For the Mexican natural gas sector, developing an ecosystem of independent producers has several appeals. For one, it would ease the country’s dependence on imported gas, which currently supplies about 65% of the roughly 7.9 Bcf/d that Mexico consumes.Reducing that dependence is a policy objective shared by Pena Nieto and the incoming President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, despite their markedly different views on the energy reform.The emergence of independent producers also could stimulate the development of Mexico’s wholesale gas market, which was itself liberalized as part of the reform. An emerging base of independent producers could, for example, encourage the formation of local price indexes to compete with U.S. benchmarks that are widely used in the market now.They could also push the development of Mexican pipeline systems in new directions, and toward new sponsors. Most recent pipeline projects in the country are anchored by transport agreements with federal power company Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE) and, to a lesser extent, Pemex, to supply Mexican power plants and industrial consumers with imported gas from basins in the United States.Moreover, although private developers are building the pipeline infrastructure, CFE and Pemex, as state companies with the full backing of the Mexican government, offer an “implicit sovereign guarantee,” said Houston-based George Baker, editor of Mexico Energy Intelligence.

The operator of Sistrangas, Mexico’s main gas transmission network, has tendered a $38 million contract for a compressor station project intended to help shore up the supply of natural gas in southern Mexico.

Mexico said it plans to tender its first strategic storage project at a depleted natural gas reservoir in Veracruz state.

Mexico said it plans to tender its first strategic storage project at a depleted natural gas reservoir in Veracruz state.

Mexican natural gas prices held steady in July at just over 74 pesos/gigajoule (GJ) for a third consecutive month, while trading volumes continued climbing to reach a year-to-date high, according to the energy regulator.

A U.S. company has secured a long-term contract to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) import project on the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula, a region isolated from the country’s main energy transmission systems.

Mexican natural gas prices held steady in July at just over 74 pesos/gigajoule (GJ) for a third consecutive month, while trading volumes continued climbing to reach a year-to-date high, according to the energy regulator.

A U.S. firm has secured a long-term contract to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) import project on the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula, a region isolated from the country’s main energy transmission systems.

Mexican regulators have issued updated rules for open seasons and capacity releases on pipelines in the country’s fledgling natural gas market.