Politics

Mexico’s upcoming 2024 presidential election is shaping up to be a lot closer than many expect, and the result could change the face of the natural gas sector not only in Mexico and the United States, but also the world. Click here to listen to the latest episode of NGI’s Hub & Flow podcast, in…

Senate Democrats removed language on comprehensive permitting reform from an emergency government funding bill passed late Tuesday in a defeat for Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and the natural gas industry. Manchin had voted in favor of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) on the condition that Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) include an…

Eurasia Group senior analyst Carlos Petersen forecasts that the Mexican electricity reform has very low odds of approval. The bill “would have to be modified and considerably different than it is currently to have any chance of approval,” Petersen told NGI’s Mexico GPI. The constitutional reform is set to be voted on in the nation’s…

Mexico’s private oil and natural gas industry has invested $18 billion in the country since 2015 and secured approvals to invest another $42 billion as a result of the country’s 2013-2014 constitutional energy reform. That’s according to the Asociación Mexicana de Empresas de Hidrocarburos (Amexhi), Mexico’s private sector oil and gas trade organization. The group…

“One of the priorities of this government is to strengthen the dominance of the two state energy monopolies, which has cut private investors out of the business,” Alejandra López Martínez, energy consultant at Eploc and seasoned Mexico energy industry expert, told NGI’s Mexico Gas Price Index.  “Seeing international companies as a synonym for corruption has…

Editor’s Note: NGI’s Mexico Gas Price Index, a leader tracking Mexico’s natural gas market reform, is offering the following column by Eduardo Prud’homme as part of a regular series on understanding this process. One month after the midterm elections offered hope for change in the Mexican energy sector, some worrying signs have again begun to…

Colombia’s key oil and gas industry has started to feel the impacts of nationwide protests that have dragged on for three weeks. On Wednesday, Energy Minister Diego Mesa said overall oil production had dropped below the 700,000 b/d mark for the first time since 2009. Several producers working the country have publicly announced adverse impacts.…

“The energy reform sought to create a sector that operated as a market with technical criteria and with long-term investor certainty, and that is being dismantled,” Guillermo Zúñiga, former Commissioner at the Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE) from 2013-2019, told NGI’s Mexico Gas Price Index.  Zúñiga, currently an international attorney at the Earthjustice environmental nonprofit based…

The Biden administration has frozen awarding new oil and gas drilling permits, as well as leases on federal onshore and offshore property, for 60 days, likely heralding more permanent limits to be enacted down the road. The order mandating the freeze was signed by acting Department of the Interior (DOI) Secretary Scott de la Vega…