Editor’s Note: NGI’s Mexico Gas Price Index, a leader tracking Mexico natural gas market reform, is offering the following column by Eduardo Prud’homme as part of a regular series on understanding this process.
Northwest Mexico, which includes the states of Baja California, Sonora, and Sinaloa, is an energy vulnerable region. Baja California, for example, operates as an energy island, with its electrical system disconnected from the rest of the national grid. This forces the state to rely on local generation plants and imports of electricity and natural gas from the United States.
In the supply of natural gas to Baja California, U.S. firm Sempra’s infrastructure is fundamental. With Sempra’s trunk lines and branches, consumers in the area receive gas from the Ogilby and Otay interconnections and gas pipelines that move through Arizona and California. Gas supply has also occasionally depended on shipments of LNG received at the Energía Costa Azul terminal.