{"id":938,"date":"2011-11-01T10:44:32","date_gmt":"2011-11-01T15:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=938"},"modified":"2013-11-15T20:40:04","modified_gmt":"2013-11-16T02:40:04","slug":"hungry-for-electricity-mexico-considers-border-fracking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2011\/11\/01\/hungry-for-electricity-mexico-considers-border-fracking\/","title":{"rendered":"Hungry for Electricity, Mexico Considers Border Fracking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Eagle Ford Shale formation in South Texas has made headlines for its abundance of natural gas, but the formation doesn\u2019t end at the Rio Grande. That fact is not lost on the Mexican government.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>

This rig uses hydraulic fracturing to obtain gas from Texas' Barnett Shale formation. Photo courtesy of KUT News.<\/p><\/div>\n

Last week, the Mexican Minister of Energy proposed ramping up hydraulic<\/a> fracturing operations in Northern Mexico. The announcement wasn\u2019t especially newsworthy for many this side of the border, but down South?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s huge! It’s huge!\u201d said Jaime Williams, president of the energy and climate change commission of CONCAMIN<\/a> in Monterrey, which is akin to Mexico\u2019s industrial chamber of commerce.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are the interested party! The industrial sector, the private sector is the interested party in it,\u201d Williams told KUT News.<\/p>\n

Williams said the maquilas<\/em> (factories) in Mexican border states use a lot of electricity. They\u2019ve been importing more and more natural gas from Texas just to keep the lights on in recent years.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd they\u2019re looking \u2013 just like we are \u2013 to become more energy independent,\u201d said Bob Gibb, who specializes in the energy industry for Navigant Consulting.<\/p>\n

Gibb said the U.S. exports around four billion cubic feet of gas to Mexico every day, up from three billion just a year ago. Mexico\u2019s governmental structure could enable the ramping up of its own production, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would suspect that it\u2019s going to be something that they will be able to accelerate, if you will, at a greater rate of development than we can in the United States. They\u2019re not as likely to have the political discussion that we have here,\u201d Gibb told KUT News. \u201cThat\u2019s not to say they\u2019re going to ignore it. They\u2019re just going to be able to address it a little more quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pemex<\/a> is the state-run company that owns Mexico\u2019s oil and gas resources. Under Mexican law, the country owns those resources, even if they\u2019re discovered under private property. That speeds up the process, but a lack of technical expertise could hinder drilling. Gibb said Pemex\u2019s previous efforts to partner with foreign companies have not been very successful.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey may have to look at that again, if they want to develop this huge resource, that Pemex itself today doesn\u2019t have the capability to do it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Gibb doesn\u2019t think Mexico getting into the gas business will have negative financial effects on the U.S. industry. Expanded drilling in the border region is troubling for environmentalists in Texas, however. They continue to raise concerns over the fracking techniques that let companies extract gas from shale formations that were previously unreachable.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely, Mexico has a pretty bad track record on environmental enforcement. They put far less money into it,\u201d said Luke Metzger, the director of Environment Texas. \u201cAnd so certainly we\u2019ve seen, for any number of industries, that officials have looked the other way when there are violations of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Environmentalists are worried about the risks of methane gas pollution associated with drilling and the large quantities of water used to extract gas. Metzger said, if Mexico does ramp up its fracking, it would be well-served to look to best practices in the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully they will adopt strong environmental standards, if they go down this path,\u201d Metzger said.<\/p>\n

Back in Mexico, Jaime Williams says his country is well-equipped to handle environmental dangers. The real roadblock standing between Mexico and a booming natural gas industry, he said, might be financial. Pemex, like much of the energy sector, is investing most of its money in oil drilling, which has a bigger return on investment. Williams is left hoping that the Mexican government will allow private investors to partner with foreign firms\u2013the same talked about by Bob Gibb\u2013to kick start Mexico\u2019s natural gas economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe say in Spanish: \u2018No picha, no catcha and no deja batear?<\/em>\u2019\u201d said Williams, laughing. \u201cThey\u2019re not pitching, they\u2019re not catching and they don\u2019t allow us to bat! So what can we do? If they\u2019re not going to play, well move aside and let us play!\u201d<\/p>\n

If they do make a play, said Williams, it would encourage even more industry in Mexico; growth that would also affect both sides of the border.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Eagle Ford Shale formation in South Texas has made headlines for its abundance of natural gas, but the formation doesn\u2019t end at the Rio Grande. That fact is not lost on the Mexican government. Last week, the Mexican Minister of Energy proposed ramping up hydraulic fracturing operations in Northern Mexico. The announcement wasn\u2019t especially […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[58,59],"tags":[64,76,15,426,75],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=938"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32713,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938\/revisions\/32713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}