We can describe this as the six-year term of the bet on energy sovereignty, even if to many of us it is not very clear what it means. What is clear is that, like every bet, this one has a degree of uncertainty linked to the capacity of the State companies to achieve success. We bet everything, even the furniture, and if we lose the cost would be very high.
The idea appears in Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s Nation Project published around back in 2018 and establishes that Mexico’s national power will be recovered through energy sovereignty, a concept that is defined as the capacity of the State to guarantee the energy needs of the population.
At first, the idea does not sound bad, since the Mexican State is the relationship between rulers and the governed, which would include, then, the capacity of our country to articulate the efforts among private and public companies, the governments of the three levels, public and private universities and civil society organizations. But no, it becomes a euphemism that speaks of state control of the energy sector.
The real vision of the project is that the capacity of the State to guarantee the energy needs of the population is achieved through public organisms, companies of national capital and national science, technology and engineering. That is, through public organisms, such as SENER, CENACE or CENAGAS; state companies, PEMEX and CFE, and organisms such as Conacyt, IMP or INEEL.
“And it was thus that, with this bet, starting in December 2018 the dice were thrown and we are losing.”
And it was thus that, with this bet, starting in December 2018 the dice were thrown and we are losing. The bet was placed on increasing oil production regardless of the cost, for this a program of 21 priority fields was declared, authorizations and permits were accelerated, investment in PEMEX was increased. At the same time, the oil rounds, farm-outs were cancelled and the participation of private parties has been disdained. As a result, production has not increased, but the costs per barrel produced have.
We can say the same about the electric sector. Electric auctions were cancelled, the regulator was captured, private participation has been obstructed and permits have been stopped. In contrast, everything has been given to CFE, so much so that even the Electric Industry Law has been modified to guarantee it control of the market, while electricity prices continue without going down.
What to say about gasoline? Permits were limited, asymmetric regulation was eliminated for the preponderant player, measures that favor PEMEX are established, tickets were created and the Hydrocarbons Law was modified so that the State company recovers market. In spite of this, gasoline prices do not go down either. But also, the Secretariat of Energy builds for PEMEX its own refinery in Dos Bocas, which has already broken the promised budget, while PEMEX loses more money every day by refining.
Another case, the infamous Gas Bienestar and the control of LP gas prices with the promise that prices would not rise. Well, neither was Gas Bienestar the cheapest LP gas, nor has price control given results. Gas Bienestar has already announced that it will increase its prices as a result of the growing maximum prices that the government promised to control.
We are, then, in the bet on energy sovereignty but not as a State, as a society as a whole, but as an isolationist government policy that uses only the public apparatus. It is worth asking ourselves: Energy sovereignty, but at what cost?
This article was originally published by Energía a Debate.
Date: September 18, 2021
Link: https://energiaadebate.com/la-apuesta-por-la-soberania/ [Online]