1) Congress passes landmark energy reform
This one was big and may fit better into other categories like "Top Mexico stories of 2013" or "Top Mexico energy stories of the decade."
After months of expectation, congress brought a bill forward December 7 and passed it within six days. The legislation brings unprecedented openness to both the oil and gas and electric power sectors.
In oil, the Mexican state will be allowed to contract with private companies across the value chain, including production sharing and licensing agreements in E&P. National oil company Pemex is being transformed into a "productive public enterprise," whose first goal will be maximizing profit.
In electric power, a competitive generation market will be created and administered by an ISO called Cenace. While transmission and distribution infrastructure remain property of the state, power retail will also be open to privates. Likewise, state-owned power utility CFE will become a "productive public enterprise" and seek profit first.
2) Pemex tenders integrated service contracts at Chicontepec
Pemex's third round of integrated service contracting took place at the unconventional Chicontepec basin with surprising results.
Three of the six blocks on offer were snatched up, with the other three blocks receiving no bids. Halliburton, Operadora de Campos DWF and Baker Hughes' Petrolite each won a block, but with surprisingly low bids of US$0.01/b, US$0.98/b and US$0.49/b, respectively.
The services companies expect to have the cost recovery mechanism be profitable on its own. Pemex is retendering the three failed blocks, expected for awarding in January.
3) CFE blames losses on fuel costs
CFE said its US$1.50bn net loss in 2012 could be attributed almost entirely to higher consumption of heavy fuel oil. The trend continued through 2013, with CFE saying its US$474mn loss in Q3 was also caused by fuel oil costs.
While the continued losses for the firm are concerning in themselves, they were indicative of a larger problem in Mexico: the country does not have enough natural gas.
CFE, which had to rely more heavily on old, fuel oil generators, is only one of the firms in Mexico to suffer from insufficient natural gas transportation capacity.
4) Pemex Los Ramones tender flops, takes control of project
In 2013, Pemex issued a call for bidders on the 740km, 1.43Bf3/d (40.5Mm3/d) Los Ramones II pipeline, said to be the backbone of the natural gas transportation system.
The long-awaited project is expected to guarantee long-term gas imports from the US. But when bids were due, only one group, a consortium between France's GDF Suez and Spain's Enagás, tabled a bid.
Pemex rejected the bid and took control of the project, promptly announcing it would be forming JVs withSempra's Mexico unit IEnova and GDF Suez to build the project in two phases.
Some experts say Pemex had always wanted to build the project on its own and had designed the tender fail.
5) Mexico launches first large-scale solar plant
In September, Mexico's first large-scale solar PV plant, the 30MW Aura Solar I, started generating power and it was not CFE who built it.
The 100 hectare project was built by Gauss Energía, with Martifer Solar on EPC and Suntech providing panels, and was financed by private capital and the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
The project was a huge step forward for solar in Mexico as IFC saw profitability in Mexico's small producer private generation model.
Gauss expects this to be the first of many stages at the Aura Solar complex.
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