Locator: 49912B.
Inflation numbers: 3% vs 2.7% prior.
Misery index: haven't seen this in awhile .... link here.
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Back to the Bakken
WTI: $61.79.
New wells reporting:
- Thursday, January 15, 2026: 23 for the month, 23 for the quarter, 23 for the year,
- 41364, conf, BR, Sandie 1B MBH,
- 40912, conf, Hess, GO-Layton-156-97-1931H-2,
- Wednesday, January 14, 2026: 21 for the month, 21 for the quarter, 21 for the year,
- 40582, conf, KODA Resources, Stout 1831-5BH,
RBN Energy: private-sector midstreamers eye expansion to Mexico's gas pipeline network. Part 2. Link here. Archived.
Mexico’s process for planning new natural gas pipelines and gas-fired power plants is very top-down, with state-owned Cenagas (owner of Pemex’s legacy pipeline network) and Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) playing key roles. But the massive buildout of pipelines south of the border has been largely accomplished by private-sector companies like TC Energy, Esentia Energy and Grupo Carso, which have the financial and technical wherewithal to execute complex projects costing many billions of pesos. Now, these midstreamers are working to advance another round of projects that will spur additional gas exports from the U.S. In today’s RBN blog, we continue our look at the leading publicly and privately held companies in Mexico’s gas-pipeline space.
In Part 1, we noted that (1) U.S. gas exports to Mexico have been rising steadily as new gas pipelines and gas-fired plants come online and (2) two successive presidential administrations in Mexico have seen the value of having the private sector play a major role in pipeline development — as long as Cenagas and CFE take the lead in pipeline planning, support and oversight. We also began a review of the leading private-sector companies involved in building new pipelines in Mexico with a look at TC Energy, which owns and operates eight large pipelines there.
Today, we follow that up with profiles of three other companies that have built — or are planning to build — gas pipelines in Mexico: Esentia Energy, Grupo Carso and Engie SA.
Esentia Energy
Esentia got its start back in the mid-1990s as Fermaca Enterprises, a family-owned company formed to develop gas pipelines and related infrastructure in Mexico. By 2014, Fermaca had developed a handful of projects, including the Tarahumara Pipeline in Chihuahua state in northern Mexico (just south of El Paso, TX; more on Tarahumara later). That same year, Swiss-based private-equity firm Partners Group acquired an unspecified majority interest in Fermaca for an estimated $750 million. Over the next several months, Partners refinanced Fermaca’s debt and raised more than $500 million in additional equity to help finance a substantial buildout of the midstream company’s Mexican portfolio. Fermaca also co-developed with ONEOK (and still holds a 50% ownership in) the Roadrunner Pipeline from the Waha Hub in West Texas to the origin point of the Tarahumara Pipeline (again, more on these in a moment).
By the early 2020s, Partners Group was transitioning the Fermaca Enterprises name to Esentia Energy, and in November 2025 it launched an Esentia initial public offering (IPO) that raised more than $600 million. Partners said it would use most of the proceeds to help fund planned capacity expansions along the midstreamer’s primary pipeline corridor down Mexico’s spine and the rest to reduce Esentia’s debt.
