Regulatory

“A lot of the potential developments that nearshoring will bring are going to need access to natural gas,” Diana Pineda, a partner at Gónzalez Calvillo law firm in Mexico City, told NGI’s Mexico GPI.  “And the truth is, we’ve now gone several years without a new natural gas pipeline.” Pineda is one of the leading…

A panel of federal judges has decided to withdraw its decision around a Texas air permit for Sempra Infrastructure’s Port Arthur LNG export project southeast of Houston. In November, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated an air permit granted by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). In that decision, the…

Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced a new package of 20 constitutional reforms on Monday evening. They include plans to scrap autonomous regulators such as competition watchdog Comisión Federal de Competencia Económica (Cofece) and energy regulator Comisión Reguladora de Energía (CRE). CRE oversees natural gas regulations and permitting. It also publishes the IPGN monthly…

Mexican presidential candidate Xóchitl Gálvez on Monday applauded a recent Supreme Court ruling that invalidated one of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s most controversial energy policies.  Mexico’s high court deemed unconstitutional a set of modifications to Mexico’s electricity industry law (LIE) that sought to prioritize the dispatch of electricity from power plants owned by state…

Representatives from some of Mexico’s most important natural gas supply, transport and storage companies are optimistic that the national industry is poised to continue to grow.Mexico natural gas demand is set to expand 4.6% annually during the next decade, according to forecasts by national pipeline system operator Cenagas.  “I think natural gas is probably in…

Mexico’s natural gas market will continue its modernization and expansion in 2024, regardless of who wins the presidential election on June 2. Natural gas demand in Mexico, driven by the power sector, continues to rise. Power demand was up by around 440 MMcf/d in 2023 to 4.603 Bcf/d, according to Wood Mackenzie data. Natural gas…

A multi-year effort to pause oil and natural gas development across a portion of Colorado’s Western Slope may soon be finalized, according to federal officials. A draft environmental assessment (DEA) issued in December by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) found there would be “no significant impact” if federal mineral leasing was withdrawn for 20 years…

FortisBC Energy Inc. was sent back to the drawing board to supply a growing customer base after Canadian regulators rejected a proposal for a C$327 million ($285 million) natural gas pipeline.  The British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC) in late December denied a certificate of public convenience and necessity for FortisBC’s proposed Okanagan Capacity Upgrade (OCU)…

“Investor confidence has to be reestablished through clear policies and mechanisms that are maintained and upheld over an extended period of time,” Sofía Tamayo Gutiérrez, Institutional Relations & Regulatory Affairs director at Kino Energia told NGI’s Mexico GPI. For the incoming government, “I would say: stability and legal certainty, the promotion of renewable energies and…