Mexico Pipeline Boom Fueled by Texas Drillers Moving Natural Gas

“This doesn’t change at all our appetite for new pipelines,” Ruiz told reporters on a conference call Monday.

BlackRock’s In

In March, BlackRock Inc., the largest U.S. money manager, and First Reserve Corp., a Greenwich, Connecticut-based investment fund, paid $900 million for a 45 percent stake in the Los Ramones II project. That 460-mile pipeline will run from Nuevo Leon to Guanajuato state. Armando Senra, head of Latin America and Iberia at BlackRock, said the company is “excited to grow our footprint in the country.”

Comision Federal de Electricidad, a government-owned utility tasked with overseeing new pipeline construction, has requested bids on 12 gas projects totaling $8.7 billion, to be awarded through next year. The government’s goal is to increase the pipeline network by 75 percent by 2018 and triple total gas supplies to 7 billion cubic feet a day by 2028.

And there’s plenty of gas north of the border. While Mexican gas production has slid about 16 percent since 2008, U.S. output has risen 44 percent since 2008. The Eagle Ford Shale formation, the top U.S. gas field by proven reserves, is in South Texas, not too far away.

“Natural gas demand in Mexico has been growing substantially over the last five years,” NextEra Energy Chief Financial Officer Moray Dewhurst told investors on a conference call Monday. “At the same time, Mexico-based natural gas supply has been declining, which we believe increases Mexico’s need for U.S. gas imports.”

--With assistance from Jim Polson, Michael Lawn and Rita Nazareth in New York and Carolina Wilson in New York City.

To contact the reporters on this story: Adam Williams in Mexico City at awilliams111@bloomberg.net; Andrea Navarro in Mexico City at anavarro30@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Walsh at bwalsh8@bloomberg.net; David Marino at dmarino4@bloomberg.net Bradley Keoun.