Mexico

Editor’s Note: Please enjoy this bonus coverage from NGI’s Mexico Gas Price Index, which includes daily prices, analysis and coverage of the emerging natural gas market in Mexico. Request a Trial | SubscribeInfraestructura Energética Nova (IEnova) chairman Carlos Ruiz Sacristan and Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) CEO Manuel Bartlett have agreed to jointly work toward re-opening a section of IEnova’s Sonora natural gas pipeline in Western Mexico that has been inactive since August 2017, Ruiz Sacristan said last week.CFE is Mexico’s state-owned power utility and the anchor customer of the Sonora pipeline, which includes the 503-kilometer (313-mile) Sásabe-Guaymas and 328-kilometer (204-mile) Guaymas-El Oro segments.The Guaymas-El Oro segment remains shut amid a still-unresolved legal dispute with one of the area’s eight Yaqui indigenous communities. The other seven gave their blessing to the pipeline, which entered operation in 2017, but was subsequently sabotaged that same year by the dissenting Yaqui faction. IEnova is the Mexican unit of U.S.-based Sempra Energy.During IEnova’s fourth quarter earnings call last Thursday, Ruiz Sacristan told analysts that he and Bartlett had a “very cordial discussion about [Guaymas-El Oro]. We agreed with CFE that our priority is to work together to place this pipeline back into service.”Bartlett and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador called earlier this month for the renegotiation of several of CFE’s natural gas pipeline contracts, citing “unfair” take-or-pay clauses that force CFE to make fixed capacity payments to developers for delayed or inactive pipelines such as Guaymas-El Oro.To read the full article and gain access to more in-depth coverage including natural gas price and flow data surrounding the rapidly evolving Mexico energy markets, check out NGI’s Mexico Gas Price Index.

Mexico’s Comisión Reguladora de Energía (CRE) on Tuesday denied a series of accusations made against it regarding construction delays to seven natural gas pipeline systems by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the CEO of state power utility Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE), Manuel Bartlett.

Mexican state power utility Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) will seek to renegotiate the take-or-pay clauses of contracts that it holds with natural gas pipeline developers, CEO Manuel Bartlett said Monday.

The future of an already completed 642 MW combined-cycle thermal power plant in Mexico’s Morelos state will be determined via referendum, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said last week.

A local price index for natural gas in Mexico will develop over time, but it will likely depend on increased production of domestic natural gas resources, a group of experts said earlier this month.

Natural gas marketers in Mexico transacted an average volume of 6.69 Bcf/d during the second half of 2018 (2H2018), up 35% from the 4.96 Bcf/d averaged in the year-earlier period, with December deals surging, according to the latest IPGN monthly natural gas price index published by the Comisión Reguladora de Energía (CRE).

Imported natural gas will continue to be a growing part of the energy mix in Mexico despite calls from the new government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador to reengineer the sector, according to a range of opinions shared at Industry Exchange’s 4th Mexico Infrastructure Projects Forum in Monterrey, Mexico Jan. 16-17.

The tender for a 600 MMcf/d floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) in the Pajaritos port in the southern Gulf of the Mexican state of Veracruz has been called off, sources have told NGI’s Mexico GPI.

CEO Roberto Castello Branco of Brazil’s Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) at his recent swearing-in ceremony said the state-owned energy giant needs to divest natural gas assets and end its domination of the gas supply chain to increase the number of participants in the market.