Mexico conducts first open season on natural gas pipeline capacity
Continuing the country’s ongoing energy reforms, Mexico’s National Center for Natural Gas Control (Centro National de Control del Gas Natural—CENAGAS) recently conducted Mexico’s first natural gas grid capacity open season to auction pipeline capacity rights, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
CENAGAS manages Mexico’s Integrated National Natural Gas Transportation and Storage System (Sistema de Transporte y Almacenamiento Nacional Integrado de Gas Natural—SISTRANGAS), which currently has a pipeline length of 6,256 miles with a total transportation capacity of 6.3 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d).
Created in 2014, CENAGAS is the decentralized public organization that assigns capacity rights for pipelines previously owned, operated, and largely used by PEMEX, Mexico’s national energy company. As PEMEX had been the monopoly controller over all of the country’s pipeline assets, Mexico’s energy reforms chose to dismantle the PEMEX monopoly, transitioning the energy sector to a more open market.
In order to smoothly transition to the new market structure, two open seasons were scheduled, “Round 0” and “Round 1”. The Round 0 phase occurred in October of 2016, where 1.1 Bcf/d was reserved for Mexico’s Federal Electricity Commission (Comisión Federal de Electricidad–CFE) and 1.4 Bcf/d was reserved for PEMEX. Another 1.6 Bcf/d of capacity was reserved for Mexico’s independent power producers, which hold long term contracts to sell power to the CFE. They are not subject to any short-term capacity auctions. Due to this, only 2.2 Bcf/d of the 6.3 Bcf/d capacity was up for auction for the Round 1 auction.
Round 1 auctions were held in May 2017. While 24 local and international companies vied for 3.6 Bcf/d, CENAGAS allocated the 2.2 Bcf/d to PEMEX (receiving 59 percent), ENGIE Mexico and ArcelorMittal (each receiving 7 percent), Shell Trading Mexico (receiving 6 percent), and Group Alpha (receiving 5 percent). ENGIE Mexico, Shell Trading Mexico, and Groupo Alpha are all natural gas allocations and services, while ArcelorMittal is one of the largest steel manufacturers in the world.
The remaining 15 percent of capacity went to 19 other companies, many of which are in the natural gas retailing and marketing business. Overall, the interested companies were drawn to the injection points supplying U.S. natural gas to Mexican pipelines.
Companies awarded capacity began taking over state-owned operators on July 1 for one-year contracts.
CENAGAS held another auction for five cross-border pipelines assigned to the Federal Electricity Commission on July 10. However, no final bids were submitted and the auction was declared void. On August 10, CENAGAS expects to hold another auction for capacity on the five cross-border pipelines.
