Mexico Must Simplify Natural Gas Regulation to Promote Growth – Column

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. 

Mexico natural gas pipeline imports from the United States are hitting records and are now around 7 Bcf/d. This enormous volume that flows through some 20 cross-border connections is distributed by a few key players. The upstream suppliers are but the first link in a supply chain that leads to residential users in places like Mexico City or smaller industrial users in the Bajío region. 

Not all gas users require large, punctual consumption in the manner of state power company Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE). For the smaller end users, their counterparts...