President Claudia Sheinbaum announced on April 8 a significant shift in Mexico’s energy policy by unveiling a project to exploit natural gas through hydraulic fracturing (fracking) beginning next year. This shift in policy represents a departure from the position of the previous administration, which rejected this method on environmental grounds and even attempted to constitutionally prohibit it in 2024 without success.
Mexico currently depends on natural gas imported from the United States. Of the nine billion cubic feet of gas that the country consumes daily, 75% comes is imported from Texas (80%) and California (20%). To address this situation, the Federal Government has identified the exploitation of shale gas as a solution. According to data from Pemex, Mexico has 141.5 trillion cubic feet of gas in unconventional reservoirs that require fracking, in addition to an estimated 83 trillion cubic feet in conventional reservoirs.
