Four Keys to Reducing Mexico’s Dependence on Gas

Report
8 May 2026
- Talia Contreras
- Aaron Sayne

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Mexico’s growing dependence on natural gas—especially from the United States—has created mounting risks for its energy security, economic stability, and long-term transition options. This report argues that reducing structural dependence on gas, not simply expanding supply, is essential to building a more resilient energy future.

Key Messages

Mexico's structural dependence on gas threatens its socioeconomic stability and limits the country's options for advancing the energy transition. It is time to rethink this path.
This dependence goes beyond imports; it translates into concrete risks to supply reliability, price stability, and the feasibility of the energy transition, with direct impacts on the economy and essential services.
Today, gas plays a central role, not only as an energy input but also as a potential instrument of economic and political influence. The global context has implications for Mexico's energy system, which is already strained by its dependence on gas from the United States. The global environment does not create the problem, but it intensifies it and makes it more urgent to address.
A strategy focused primarily on increasing domestic gas production is insufficient to mitigate current risks, as it does not address the structural nature of the dependence or the dynamics of the international context. The underlying solution is to reduce the structural weight of gas in the energy system.
Current energy policy decisions will determine whether the system evolves by inertia or through a deliberate strategy that reduces risks, expands alternatives, and strengthens long-term resilience. An urgent rethinking of the energy policy approach is needed.

Mexico's dependence on gas is structural—and goes well beyond the question of imports. The national energy system has been built around gas: its infrastructure, logistics, and investment decisions all sustain its use by default. As domestic production has fallen, reliance on a single foreign supplier has deepened.

Gas now sits at the center of electricity generation, industry, and essential services. That makes the system acutely exposed to disruption—whether from natural disasters, geopolitical shifts, or changes in U.S. trade policy.

Winter Storm Uri in 2021 demonstrated that these risks are real—and that when they materialise, the impacts are widespread and simultaneous.

Simply producing more gas domestically won't solve this. The dependency is structural, and the solution must be too. NRGI's new report argues that Mexico needs a fundamental shift in gas policy: rather than focusing primarily on increasing supply, it proposes a framework centered on reducing structural dependence through smarter planning, stronger institutions, and expanded alternatives—placing demand management at the heart of policy.

The report is aimed at governments, regulators, civil society organizations, and other stakeholders with a role in shaping Mexico's energy future. It identifies four key measures to reduce gas dependence in Mexico:

Binding planning to reduce gas consumption, with medium- and long-term scenarios, clear indicators, and multidimensional risk assessments covering supply, economic-financial, and environmental dimensions.
Transition plans for Pemex and CFE, including revised investment criteria, diversification, and a commitment to minimizing methane flaring, venting, and leaks—alongside careful and transparent exploration of new business lines.
Strong support for clean, affordable alternatives to gas.
Transparency and information disclosure, in open, reusable formats to enable an informed national debate about the future of gas.

Released as part of NRGI’s 20th anniversary, Transforming Resource Governance for a New Era, the report applies lessons from two decades of resource governance to one of Mexico’s defining energy challenges.