Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) is selling fuel oil to the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) so that it solves the problem of scheduled power outages in Mexico, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador explained this Wednesday.
“The Federal Commission technicians are acting and attentive and work is being done. This situation was already being anticipated, so it was decided a week ago to deliver Pemex fuel oil to the CFE, and deliver it at a low price,” he said.
The president stressed that the cuts to electricity in some entities of the Mexican Republic are due to the decrease in the shipment of gas from Texas.
That entity, added the president, is going through an emergency by the frosts registered in the last days.
“We are already buying liquefied gas, three liquefied gas ships, and possibly more will be bought to solve the problem, “he said.
López Obrador added that the CFE was also starting up coal plants to solve the lack of electricity.
“We also had the problem that they froze and we had to wait, but energy is already being generated and this is going to help,” he said.
In this regard, the union leadership of section 154 of SUTERM reported that the thermoelectric plant of the Federal Electricity Commission, located in Nava, Coahuila, operates at minimum capacity.
Early on Monday, the arrival of the ninth winter storm brought the temperature down to minus 9 degrees Celsius, which froze the electric power generating machines.
According to the union, only one unit from the Carbon I plant and one generator from the Carbon II plant are working; The reduction in operations is also the consequence of the fact that the subsidiary of Altos Hornos de México, MICARE, closed operations and canceled the supply contract with the state company.
On Tuesday, about 3.2 million users of the Federal Electricity Commission they did not have electricity service, which represents less than eight percent of the total, the company said in a statement.
He explained that he maintains close coordination with the National Center for Energy Control (Cenace) to maintain the stability of the electrical system and avoid further damage, as well as to attend the restoration activities that it instructs.
Initially, Cenace pointed out that the programmed cuts to the electricity supply would affect only to 12 states of Mexico. However, the ‘blackouts’ occurred in 26 entities.
Natural gas injection begins
The CFE began on Tuesday afternoon the injection of 450 million cubic feet of natural gas contained in ships to the generation plants installed in the ports of Manzanillo and Altamira, according to a statement.
The agency indicated that through its subsidiary CFEnergía it acquired liquefied natural gas that has been transferred in ships that will enter through the ports of Manzanillo and Altamira, where this energy will be injected.
He explained that with this operation the electricity generation load will be recovered in the plants that use gas, such as TC Salamanca, Salamanca Cogeneración, San Lorenzo Power, CC Tula and Valle de México, whose total capacity is close to 1,800 Megawatts.
In addition, CFE pointed out that the action contributes to mitigating the effects foreseen by the critical alert issued on Tuesday by the National Center for Natural Gas Control (Cenagas), which was generated by the drop in energy injections in the Texas pipelines that they were frozen by low temperatures.
With information from Magda Guardiola
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