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.
