CFE chief Enrique Ochoa.RED POLITICAThe lines will carry natural gas from Texas to the border
Two of the five pipeline projects planned this year by the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) are almost set to go to tender.
Yesterday, the CFE outlined the two projects to investors at a meeting in Houston, Texas, in preparation for a Request for Proposals due to be issued in the coming weeks.
The pipelines will carry natural gas from Waha, Texas, to the Mexican border, where they will link up with other lines to move the gas south. One is a 277-kilometer line to San Elizario and the other will run 230 kilometers to Presidio.
Cost for both pipelines is estimated at US $945 million.
The other three projects are a 254-kilometer line from Ojinaga to El Encino in Chihuahua, El Encino to Laguna in Durango and Ehrenberg, Arizona, to San Luis Río Colorado in Sonora.
Total cost of the five projects is estimated at $2.5 billion, and all are expected to be completed between 2015 and 2017. Once up and running, CFE will begin selling natural gas to the private sector, a first for the commission and a business opportunity permitted through the energy reforms.
Industrial users will be the primary market for the gas, CFE chief Enrique Ochoa told Reuters earlier this year, along with electrical generation as the commission moves away from burning fuel oil. Current generation capacity is 54 gigawatts, half of which is produced with natural gas and one-fifth with oil.
Ochoa said CFE also wants to produce more power from renewable sources. Ochoa said wind, solar, geothermal and especially hydroelectric sources will grow fastest.
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