Mexico consumes about 9 bcfd (billion cubic feet per day). Mexico imports 6.5 bcfd by pipeline from the U.S. This amounts to 75% of Mexico’s demand. Since the U.S. has been phenomenally successful with shale gas, its southern neighbor can’t help but realize its own potential. The government appointed a commission to boost internal gas production, and made recommendations. How sensible are these recommendations?
The state-owned oil company, Pemex, plans to increase domestic production to 4 bcfd by 2030, and this is real progress. But it’s not enough to stop Mexico importing gas from the U.S. Mexico needs to produce more gas.
Mexico’s Vision To Meet Electrical Power Needs.
Natural gas is just a part of Mexico’s vision to increase electric power. The larger vision is extraordinary. In total, Mexico has announced over $42 billion dollars to increase their power capacity by 32 GW (giga watts) by 2030. 10 GW of this new power will be five new combined-cycle gas plants. The rest will be renewables, with solar leading the pack. President Claudia Sheinbaum wants renewable sources to grow from 24% of total power today to 38% by 2030.
Where Will Gas Come From For New Gas Plants?
Mexico has basins that should be accessible to unconventional production. Mexico holds over 140 Tcf (trillion cubic feet) of unconventional gas resources, mostly in northern shale or tight sand basins. This is a large number. But it is small potatoes compared with 281 Tcf in the Delaware basin, the largest deposit of oil and gas ever documented by the USGS in the USA. The Delaware, in New Mexico and West Texas, is part of the larger Permian basin, and is one of the world’s premier basins for producing oil and gas. Clearly, the motivation for producing more gas is right there in Mexico’s back yard.
Table: Unconventional gas plays in Mexico.
The table shows the three unconventional gas basins. The first two are in the north of Mexico. Infrastructure in the Burgos is partly developed as it’s been producing for decades. But further advances are complicated because the area is an organized crime risk, which affects investment and insurance policies. The Burgos is geologically continuous with the Eagle Ford play in Texas, which produces 4.3 bcfd all by itself—so the promise is there.
The Sabinas-Burro-Picachos play is the largest, but the least developed. There are regulatory problems because the state is governed by opposition parties.
Tampico-Misantla, The Southern Basin Excluded.
But what about southern gas basins in Mexico? The Tampico-Misantla basin contains 20 Tcf of unconventional gas, which may not be critical to supply Mexico. But it also holds 35 billion barrels of unconventional crude oil. This is essentially all of Mexico’s identified shale oil resource. If this basin is not developed, one of Latin America’s premier shale oil plays will be lost.
The government commission recommended against fracking in this region, because the Tampico-Misantla basin is densely populated, and it underlies indigenous tribes who strongly oppose fracking. Further, the basin contains freshwater aquifers used for drinking, livestock, and agriculture. As the mighty Permian basin, in West Texas, has taught us, tapping enormous quantities of freshwater from aquifers to use for fracking has raised concerns. Number 1, because each well requires up to 20 million gallons of fresh water to frac a typical horizontal well. Number 2, because the Permian lies in a desert where freshwater is precious.
President Sheinbaum made this a prerequisite: “Without confirmed deep saline reservoirs, the possibility of unconventional exploitation in either basin closes entirely.” The prohibition was accompanied by a related restriction: that an independent monitoring system be installed to cover “aquifer integrity, environmental impact, and seismic activity.”
These extra restrictions will add to Pemex’s financial burden, since they’re already carrying one of the heaviest debts of any national energy company in the world.
Another issue is that the fraction of produced water (water produced alongside gas) usually increases over time. This wastewater has to be reinjected underground, or cleaned up at the surface, which is more expensive. Reinjection can lead to induced earthquakes, some as big as magnitude 5, as happened in Oklahoma in the 1910 decade and still occurs in this decade in the Permian basin.
Northern Basins Are Frackable.
In light of these issues, the commission recommended against fracking in the southern Tampico-Misantla basin, but redirected fracking to basins that contain saltwater rather than freshwater aquifers. President Sheinbaum confirmed that fracking would not be allowed in the Tampico-Misantla basin.
But the shale basins in northern Mexico (see table) are supposed to be saltwater basins. And therefore are candidates for current fracking technology. President Sheinbaum’s prerequisite about a system to monitor aquifer integrity may find learnings in an extensive surveillance of producing wells and water wells in coalbed methane plays in Australia, which has been documented.
There is one proviso: the saltwater from aquifers has to be cleaned up before it can be used to frac new wells. If this can be done at a reasonable cost, U.S. shale fracking and well designs for long horizontal wells in stacked pay are well known and can be deployed. Mexico can learn from experts in the Delaware part of the Permian basin of New Mexico, just across the border.