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Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, revealed on Thursday that he offered to supply Germany with Mexican natural gas, given the supply problems caused by the conflict with Russia, and estimated that it would cover 30% of its fuel needs.
During his morning press conference, the President informed of the offer he made to the President of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, during his visit to Mexico last week.
“Now that the German president has visited us, we asked him that, not for commercial reasons, but for support, as we do with everyone, we could send gas, we have gas,” he said.
Questioned about the amount, López Obrador assured that Mexico’s natural gas would be enough to supply 30% of Germany’s needs, citing that the European country had a gas supply contract with Russia and closed its nuclear plants.
The president acknowledged that “it would take time” because Mexico needs to build two liquefaction plants to freeze the gas and ship it.
However, he pointed out that there is a U.S. company, New Fortress Energy, with technology that allows gas to be transported in ships without the need to build a plant on land.
“In the very same ship the gas is frozen and taken and there it is regasified in the port where there is the pipeline, that is to say, progress has already been made in this regard. In any case, they would have to reach an agreement with this U.S. company, but we do have the gas available,” he said.
Mexico, he said, has surplus gas because there are hydrocarbon contracts for the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), a state-owned company, and it is also being extracted from the new oil fields that the country is exploiting.
“So we could help, it’s just a matter of them deciding,” he said.
His offer comes after it was revealed that many European countries will fall into recession in 2023 if there are gas supply problems in the coming months, according to a report last Monday by the OECD.
In the report, the OECD corrected its estimates for the euro zone’s GDP growth for the coming year to 0.3%, with a correction in particular for Germany, where a recession of 0.7% is expected.
