With growing demand for natural gas for power generation and other applications, Mexico needs to prioritize a domestic production increase, the head of Mexico’s National Hydrocarbons Commission told Reuters this week. “We need to diversify (sources of natural gas) because we are very concentrated,” Juan Carlos Zepeda said, adding that it would make sense to develop shale resources, which are estimated at more than 141 trillion cu ft of natural gas. Like its oil production, Mexico’s natural gas production has been on the decline for years. After peaking at 7.03 billion cu ft in 2009, the average this year has been just 4.83 billion cu ft. Meanwhile, demand is growing fast and Mexico’s reliance on imports from the United States is deepening: total gas imports account for 84 percent of domestic gas demand and almost 100 percent of these imports come from Mexico’s northern neighbors—an uncomfortably high degree of […]