Editor’s Be aware: NGI’s Mexico Gasoline Value Index, a frontrunner monitoring Mexico pure fuel market reform, is providing the next column by Eduardo Prud’homme as a part of an everyday sequence on understanding this course of.
One other 12 months is ending, which suggests it’s time to take inventory. In some ways, the Mexico pure fuel market stays the identical as this time final 12 months. Nothing has been achieved to cut back dependence on fuel from different nations. But there have been some qualitative adjustments that indicate effectivity positive aspects.
In 2019, Mexico imported virtually 1 Bcf/d of LNG throughout peak months. As we speak the common import of liquefied pure fuel year-to-date is round 50 MMcf/d, and a big a part of this import is to help operations. The terminals must have a minimal stock to take care of enough temperatures for the continuity of providers, that’s, to maintain the tanks chilly.
These volumes can come by imports by way of pipelines. Volumes into Manzanillo enter at present by Ojinaga and San Isidro within the neighborhood of Waha and the tankers that when docked in Altamira have been largely changed by the Sur de Texas-Tuxpan marine pipeline.
This 12 months, U.S. imports have fallen a bit due to a rise in Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) manufacturing in southern Veracruz. In 2021, whole imports peaked at 6.7 Bcf/d in June and summer season demand noticed imports common 6.4 Bcf/d. Curiously, the saturation of fuel packing within the Gulf zone this 12 months because of added fuel from Ixachi meant that even within the warmth of August, pipeline imports had been solely round 5.8 Bcf/d.
However within the Mexican fuel system of 2022 plainly no progress is freed from issues. The discount in imports has meant a lower within the flows that transit from the marine pipeline to the Sistrangas nationwide system, with cuts in nominations managed by operator Cenagas. These cuts, which have even affected Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE) and its advertising and marketing arm CFEnergía, are only one manifestation of Cenagas’s varied operational predicaments.
Since October 11, a “state of operational restriction” has prevailed within the Sistrangas. The transient rationalization is that the discount in injections within the V061-Ramones industrial node is affecting the working circumstances within the north, heart and west of the nation, that’s, the place the majority of consumption is.
July 2019 imports by Gasoducto del Noreste, the primary section of the Ramones challenge, averaged round 2 Bcf/d. This worth had been a relentless in earlier years, when Camargo was the most important injection level of all of the pipeline programs within the nation, bigger than any Pemex processing heart, bigger than the sum of all of the interconnections within the space. Three years later, the amount injected in July was simply 1.4 Bcf/d.
This variation appears to be a contradiction if one notes that the demand within the central-western zone has grown by virtually 300 MMcf/d between 2019 and 2022. The explanation for the change is the beginning of operations within the 2.6 Bcf/d Sur de Texas-Tuxpan underwater pipeline.
Little by little, the marine pipeline has develop into the non-Sistrangas system with the best operational impact within the totally different areas served by Cenagas. The best way wherein the direct interconnection in Montegrande and the oblique interconnection in Pedro Escobedo-El Sauz work, usually provides 500-700 MMcf/d within the mixture. These volumes have modified the philosophy of operation to such an extent that Cenagas hasn’t been in a position to carry it underneath management. This underlines a serious change within the system. Cenagas has misplaced its skill to handle the system.
Fairly merely, non-discriminatory remedy is a factor of the previous. The very fact is that the fuel consumed within the pipeline that goes from Naranjos to Tamazunchale now not flows by Sistrangas, because the confluence factors have been displaced by the fuel that enters by Montegrande. About 0.5 Bcf/d is transported by the marine pipeline with out Cenagas having any discover of it in its scheduling. Much less fuel strikes by the Sistrangas and for shorter distances.
We see the identical occurring in interconnections associated to the Fermaca system within the west, on the finish of the Wahalajara system. From the Zapotlanejo pipeline, Cenagas receives 150-180 MMcf/d, and thru El Castillo 100-150 MMcf/d.
This fuel far exceeds the aid that the regasified volumes from Manzanillo gave Sistrangas to revive the huge losses in packing, a scenario attributable to the drop in Pemex manufacturing.
The Ramones challenge connects with the Sistrangas in Apaseo in Guanajuato, and fewer fuel flows at that time, even if consumption has elevated in tariff zone 6. Paradoxically, the infrastructure out there in 2022, which has considerably elevated conduction capability and protection in comparison with what existed in 2019, doesn’t look completely strong.
However pipeline networks function in accordance with a dynamic equilibrium with two sides to each equation. The movement configuration is a perform of the demand taken by the injected fuel. Many factors of consumption have stopped taking fuel from Sistrangas and no new websites have appeared that demand fuel massively. The demand for pure fuel has not had the anticipated dynamics.
In 2019, the demand for fuel from the electrical energy sector was rather less than 4.7 Bcf/d. In 2022 it’s a little above 4.8 Bcf/d. The reason being that the demand for electrical energy has decreased since 2019. In keeping with the vitality ministry Sener, the gross era 4 years in the past was 250 TWh, whereas in 2021 it was 224 TWh and 2022 will shut with related numbers. A pandemic and an absence of financial progress are the underlying rationalization for this. Sluggish allowing for brand spanking new tasks additionally explains a few of this slack.
In southern Mexico, Guerrero continues with out pure fuel provide, Oaxaca has stagnant consumption at 25 MMcf/d from the Salina Cruz refinery, and Chiapas solely registers self-consumption from Pemex. When it comes to pure fuel, nothing has modified within the least developed areas of the nation.
With a coverage opposite to industrial openness, personal sector demand is unlikely to develop considerably within the upcoming years. The really attention-grabbing factor to occur on Mexican soil has to do with the worldwide market. Subsequent 12 months would be the 12 months when liquefaction tasks for re-export theoretically start. A wise vitality coverage would search to facilitate these tasks in trade for establishing sure precedence protocols that contribute to vitality safety.
For instance, the pipelines that feed the vegetation ought to be linked indirectly to strategic services in Mexico to offer redundancy. A coverage targeted on the nationwide curiosity would accompany this place by restoring ideas resembling open entry and competitors in advertising and marketing. The worst factor could be for the LNG market to develop with out attending to the nationwide market.
Prud’homme was central to the event of Cenagas, the nation’s pure fuel pipeline operator, an entity fashioned in 2015 as a part of the vitality reform course of. He started his profession at nationwide oil firm Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), labored for 14 years on the Vitality Regulatory Fee (CRE), rising to be chief economist, and from July 2015 by February served because the ISO chief officer for Cenagas, the place he oversaw the technical, industrial and financial administration of the nascent Pure Gasoline Built-in System (Sistrangas). Primarily based in Mexico Metropolis, he’s the pinnacle of Mexico vitality consultancy Gadex.
