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.

Cenagas

The natural gas market in Mexico is under development. Despite deep connectivity with North America and the existence of a legal framework promoting competition, the truth is that monopolistic behaviors persist to a large extent in the commercial operation of gas pipeline systems in Mexico. This is not only because of the role of state actors. Transparency is also lacking among private operators.

In the last four years, Cenagas has managed the transport capacity in the Sistrangas national pipeline system through assignments without a public, general process. This is...