{"id":2143,"date":"2026-07-24T02:54:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T02:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/paulalejandro.one\/?p=2143"},"modified":"2026-08-26T03:07:03","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T03:07:03","slug":"what-do-we-want-to-produce-natural-gas-in-mexico-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulalejandro.one\/es\/what-do-we-want-to-produce-natural-gas-in-mexico-for\/","title":{"rendered":"What Do We Want to Produce Natural Gas in Mexico For?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This week, the Forum: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Hydraulic Fracturing (or Fracking)<\/strong> was held at the Chamber of Deputies<\/strong>. Geological, environmental, social, water-related, economic, and regulatory<\/strong> arguments were presented and, although there was no consensus, it is worth understanding the main opposing positions<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first argues that Mexico can do without the development of gas<\/strong> and replace it through an accelerated expansion of renewable energies<\/strong>. The second argues that dependence on imports<\/strong> constitutes, in itself, a vulnerability incompatible with energy sovereignty<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Renewable energies<\/strong> must grow, but their expansion depends on conditions that Mexico has not yet built. In Mexico, the current electricity policy<\/strong> has limited private investment<\/strong>, maintains lags in transmission and distribution<\/strong>, and concentrates expansion decisions in public companies<\/strong> with financial restrictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Banning fracking<\/strong> under the assumption that renewables will cover the difference does not resolve those institutional limitations<\/strong> nor does it automatically turn solar and wind potential<\/strong> into available electricity<\/strong>. The objective is the right one, but the period of time is not necessarily the appropriate one. For example, China<\/strong>, which is by far the largest producer of renewable energy<\/strong> in the world, still depends on coal for 54%<\/strong> of its electricity generation, although, certainly, 20 years ago it was almost 80%<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The argument of sovereignty<\/strong> also requires greater precision. The trade of natural gas with Texas<\/strong> has been an economic advantage for Mexico, because it allows access through pipelines<\/strong> to one of the markets with the highest production and lowest prices in the world. Other countries depend on liquefied natural gas<\/strong> transported by LNG carriers<\/strong>, subject to higher costs and more volatile international prices. Although dependence<\/strong> may imply operational and geopolitical<\/strong> risks, replacing cheap gas from Texas<\/strong> with a more expensive source in Mexico does not strengthen the national economy<\/strong>, much less contribute to energy sovereignty<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, beyond these arguments, there is indeed a fundamental difference between importing gas<\/strong> and producing it in Mexico<\/strong>. The gas that arrives from the United States through pipelines<\/strong> is mainly dry gas<\/strong>, used as fuel in power plants<\/strong> and industrial processes<\/strong>. National production of wet gas<\/strong>, on the other hand, can also generate liquids such as ethane, propane, and butane<\/strong>, essential inputs for different areas of the petrochemical industry<\/strong>. Intermediate products used in plastics, resins, adhesives, solvents and numerous industrial goods, ammonia, and fertilizers<\/strong> depend on them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decline in national production<\/strong>, therefore, has not only increased imports of the fuel<\/strong> used to generate electricity, but has also reduced the availability of petrochemical raw materials<\/strong>, weakened the operation of industrial complexes<\/strong>, and expanded dependence on products with greater added value<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, the discussion focused too much on the extraction method<\/strong> and left the purposes of an eventual natural gas policy<\/strong> in the background. Before deciding how much to produce and through what technology, Mexico would have what we want to produce natural gas in Mexico<\/strong> for. Without that definition, sovereignty<\/strong> and the energy transition<\/strong> will continue functioning as political arguments around an industrial strategy<\/strong> that does not yet exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

This article was originally published by La Prensa OEM<\/strong>.<\/strong>
Date:<\/strong> July 24, 2026
Link:<\/strong> https:\/\/oem.com.mx\/la-prensa\/analisis\/opinion-por-paul-alejandro-para-que-queremos-producir-gas-natural-en-me-xico-31369441<\/a> [Online]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, the Forum: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Hydraulic Fracturing (or Fracking) was held at the Chamber of Deputies. Geological, environmental, social, water-related, economic, and regulatory arguments were presented and, although there was no consensus, it is worth understanding the main opposing positions. The first argues that Mexico can do without […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2144,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,2,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-business","category-energy-policy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulalejandro.one\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulalejandro.one\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulalejandro.one\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulalejandro.one\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulalejandro.one\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2143"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/paulalejandro.one\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2145,"href":"https:\/\/paulalejandro.one\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143\/revisions\/2145"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulalejandro.one\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulalejandro.one\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulalejandro.one\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulalejandro.one\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}