Salina Cruz-Tapachula Gas Pipeline

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Salina Cruz-Tapachula Gas Pipeline was a proposed natural gas pipeline in Mexico. The Salina Cruz-Tapachula project has since been replaced by the proposed Prosperidad Gas Pipeline.

Location

The pipeline would run from Salina Cruz, Oaxaca to Tapachula, Chiapas on the Mexico-Guatemala border.

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Project Details

• Operator: Enagás
• Parent Company: Enagás
• Proposed capacity:
• Length: 249 mi / 400 km
• Status: Cancelled
• Start Year: 2022
• Related infrastructure: Prosperidad gas pipeline

Background

The Salina Cruz-Tapachula pipeline was originally included in Mexico's five-year energy transport infrastructure plan for 2015-2019. In February 2018, the pipeline was listed in a separate government report as a US$432 million, 400-kilometer project with a proposed completion date of 2019.

Media reports in 2018 indicated that the project would be owned and operated by the Spanish natural gas company Enagás and completed within four years, though as of mid-2020 there was no mention of the pipeline on the Enagás website.

As of August 2019 the pipeline was still being discussed by local business groups in Chiapas. By late 2019, it had disappeared from some monthly government reports, though the project still appeared on the Mexican Secretary of Energy's most recent map of natural gas infrastructure.

In November 2019, the United States government signed a letter of interest in financing a $632 million natural gas pipeline in Mexico's southern states to be developed by Rassini S.A.B. de C.V., but details remained sketchy and it was unclear whether this project was related to the Salina Cruz-Tapachula project.

As of August 2020, J&E Administration Integral, S. de. L. de CV was also reportedly developing a gas pipeline project in Oaxaca and Chiapas states, which would be supplied with 200MMcf/d of natural gas imported from the United States through a new and revamped system of pipelines to be developed by Mirage Energy of San Antonio, Texas. Again it was unclear whether J&E's project was the same as the Salina Cruz-Tapachula project announced elsewhere.

In 2020 the Mexican Secretary of Energy released its national integrated gas plan for 2020-2024, which abandoned the Salina Cruz-Tapachula Gas Pipeline in favor of the proposed Prosperidad Gas Pipeline, which would cover a shorter distance and follow a slightly different route starting north of Salina Cruz in Ixtepec, Oaxaca state. Two versions of the new Prosperidad pipeline were proposed, a larger 24- to 30-inch version with a capacity of 145 mmcf/d and a smaller 20-inch version with a capacity of 95 mmcf/d.

Opposition

Environmental groups have expressed concern about construction of a natural gas pipeline on Mexico's south coast, citing the 8.2 magnitude Chiapas earthquake in September 2017 as evidence of the region's seismic instability.