Energy crisis: they warned of 48 complex extra hours and asked the population to save electricity

The the lack of electricity affected 7.9 million people in different parts of the country, but mainly in the northern entities. Meanwhile, the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) reported that it continues without electricity 89,183 Chihuahua and Tamaulipas users.

The blackouts that have been recorded in the country are a consequence of the lack of natural gas supply, as bad weather conditions in the United States have caused significant gas reductions due to pipeline freezes. This input is necessary for the operation of combined cycle power plants to produce electricity.

Rocío Nahle García, owner of Energy secretary, asked during an interview for Televisa news to the population who “save energy in homes. Let’s use electric power for the most part. It doesn’t help to pass those 48 hours, that a very strong winter storm is coming, another in the United States and in the north of the Mexican Republic ”.

He stressed that the demand is aimed at saving money and not leaving them without electricity, “the important thing is that no hospital lost power“.

The aim is to reduce the negative effects of weather conditions. Nahle García said the country has sufficient infrastructure to generate electricity both from CFE and, “we have a large infrastructure dependent on natural gas and today we realize, what we saw from the planning stage when we got to this government, that there was a great dependence on the gas that was contracted in the United States “.

Regarding the increase in the price of natural gas, he mentioned Televisa news What “it’s not that it’s not paid. The price of gasoline was $ 3 per million BTUs and rose to $ 600, and there was also no availability. CFE cleared factories that had shutdowns that run on other fuels, like diesel, fuel oil, coal, because this is an extraordinary event“, He said.

Another complication the country faces is the lack of natural gas storage capacity. Although the official said that since last week alternatives were sought to avoid power outages. “There are few countries in the world that have gas storage. We have other sources that we can replace and that is what is being done ”.

It should be noted that in the country does not produce natural gas, 90% is imported from the United States. And according to the National Hydrocarbons Commission, Mexico depends to a greater extent on this input for the production of electricity.

Natural gas does not represent more than 45% of electricity production in other countries, while in Mexico, 54% of electricity is produced from hydrocarbons.

The agent Andrés Manuel López Obrador mentioned during the morning conference on Wednesday February 17 that Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) sells fuel oil at low prices to the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) for this to solve the problem of scheduled power outages in Mexico.

He also announced that he already had bought liquefied gas, three ships, and it is possible that the government will acquire more to solve the shortage.

Tuesday February 16, around 3.2 million CFE users did not have electricity service, which was part of the scheduled outages to maintain the stability of the power system and prevent further damage, said the National Center for Energy Control (Cenace). The lack of light affected various regions of 26 entities.