Mexico still tied to US gas
Reporting shows Mexico remains heavily dependent on natural gas imports from Texas while its own Burgos Basin reserves are underused. The piece highlights energy as a latent constraint for Mexican manufacturing operations (rgvbusinessjournal.com).
Mexico still gets about three-quarters of its natural gas from the United States, with much of that fuel arriving from Texas pipelines. (eia.gov) The U.S. Energy Information Administration said pipeline exports to Mexico averaged 6.4 billion cubic feet a day in 2024, up 25% from 2019 and the highest annual level in data back to 1975. In May 2025, those exports hit a monthly record of 7.5 billion cubic feet a day. (eia.gov) Mexico’s own energy secretary, Luz Elena González, said this month that about 80% of the gas Mexico imports comes from Texas, even though the two countries share the Burgos Basin. Reporting by the Rio Grande Valley Business Journal said Mexico now imports about 75% of the gas it consumes. (rgvbusinessjournal.com) Natural gas is the fuel behind much of Mexico’s electricity system, and Fitch Ratings said in February 2025 that it accounted for more than 60% of power generation. Fitch also said more than 70% of Mexico’s gas consumption was already being imported from the United States. (fitchratings.com) That leaves factories and industrial parks tied to the same cross-border fuel system that powers homes and power plants. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said most growth in Mexico’s gas demand since 2019 has come from the electric power sector, while the Rio Grande Valley Business Journal tied that dependence to manufacturing risk. (eia.gov; rgvbusinessjournal.com) The dependence is not mainly a pipeline shortage on the U.S. side. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said export corridors from South Texas, West Texas, Arizona and California had combined capacity of about 14.8 billion cubic feet a day in 2024, with utilization around 43%. (eia.gov) The bottlenecks are inside Mexico: delayed pipeline links, permitting problems and limited gas storage. The U.S. Energy Information Administration listed all three as constraints on how much imported gas can move and where it can go. (eia.gov) Burgos has been part of Mexico’s gas story for decades, but output there has fallen. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said Burgos production dropped 32% from 1.2 billion cubic feet a day in 2012 to 0.87 billion cubic feet a day in 2016 as Pemex cut spending in the basin by 92%. (eia.gov) Mexico opened the onshore Burgos Basin to private exploration in 2017, and the U.S. Energy Information Administration said the basin held the country’s largest undeveloped shale resources. But tight rock, fast well declines and lower investment kept domestic supply from catching up with demand. (eia.gov) President Claudia Sheinbaum has now signaled a policy shift toward developing unconventional gas to cut import dependence. That move puts the same question back at the center of Mexico’s manufacturing push: whether the country can secure more of the fuel it already shares with Texas. (apnews.com; rgvbusinessjournal.com)
