Black Cat – In Mexico, an Esentia Gas Pipeline Deal Puts a Spotlight on the Gato Negro LNG Project

A natural gas pipeline deal that would give Esentia Energy a complete, start-to-finish link between the Permian Basin and Mexico’s Pacific Coast is highlighting a heretofore under-the-radar LNG project being planned at the end of that now-1,400-mile pipeline system. Gato Negro LNG (Spanish for black cat), a proposed 9-MMtpa (1.2 Bcf/d) export facility in Manzanillo slated to come online in the early 2030s, would be yet another major consumer of Permian gas and provide direct access to all-important Asia-Pacific LNG markets. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll discuss Esentia’s purchase of a TC Energy gas pipeline in west-central Mexico and the plan by other investors to build what would be one of Mexico’s largest midstream projects ever.

For a few years now, western Mexico has been viewed by many as a plausible — albeit complicated — place to pipe Permian-sourced gas, liquefy it into LNG, and ship it to Asia-Pacific buyers. Most important, it takes only 10 to 12 days for an LNG carrier to reach Asia from Mexico’s west coast — half the time involved in moving one from the U.S. Gulf Coast through the Panama Canal and on to Asia and less than one-third the time needed to send an LNG carrier around the Cape of Good Hope. And, as they say, time is money.

But as another saying goes, if it were easy, everyone would do it. Developing large midstream projects south of the border is, um, challenging, to say the least. Securing pipeline rights-of-way can be a nightmare, and long-haul pipeline projects often require strategic partnerships or long-term capacity agreements with state entities like Mexico’s Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE). Constructing pipelines can be problematic too — some parts of the country are controlled or contested by organized crime, forcing developers to invest heavily in private security.

Currently, there is one semi-operational LNG export terminal on the west coast of Mexico: the 3.25-MMtpa (440 MMcf/d) Energía Costa Azul (ECA; blue diamond in Figure 1 below) Phase 1 in Ensenada, Baja California state, which is co-owned by Sempra Infrastructure, with an 83.4% controlling interest, and TotalEnergies, with a 16.6% stake. (We say semi-operational because while the project produced its first LNG in June and sent out a single shipment in July, it has since been taken offline for repairs slated to be finished in Q4 2026.) Sempra and TotalEnergies also are considering a possible 12-MMtpa (1.2-Bcf/d) Phase 2 at the ECA site but have not reached a final investment decision (FID) to date.