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.

sistrangas

A few weeks after Mexican Energy Minister Sener announced its strategy for optimizing capacity on the Sistrangas natural gas pipeline network, the companies that participate in the gas sector have begun to take legal action against it. Consequently, some judges specialized in economic competition have sided with the complaining companies, which include Fermaca and some subsidiaries of Engie SA.

The Constitution and the Hydrocarbons Law back the judicial decision. The content of articles 25, 27 and 28 of the Constitution is very clear in pointing out that monopolies...