The state Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) has reduced the use of fuel oil, as renewables have gained ground in the electricity generation park.
The CFE’s thermoelectric plants, the largest consumers of the fuel oil produced by the state-owned Pemex, have had a constant decline as producers of electricity, especially during the past year. Meanwhile, fuel oil is a by-product of the six refineries of the oil company. national and its dirtiest fuel, due to its high sulfur content.
The decline has occurred quickly. In April 2020, thermoelectric plants injected almost 1.6 million megawatt-hours into the grid, a figure 51% lower than that registered in the same month of 2019, when the energy from these plants totaled 3.2 million megawatt-hours.
In April 2021, the most recent data reported by the National Center for Energy Control (Cenace), thermoelectric plants – which also use diesel or gas, but mostly fuel oil – produced 1.6 megawatt-hours. A higher figure in sight in the same month of 2020, but which still marks a trend that remains downward.
The thermoelectric plants are owned by the state company CFE and many of them were scheduled for an upcoming exit, but the latest changes in the sector, such as a series of agreements approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE), have perpetuated their use, although not It has been avoided that their energy is relegated to the end of the row and that reduces their use.
The federal administration has sought to reverse the criterion of economic dispatch, a mechanism by which priority is given to the use of cheap energy – such as solar or wind – and makes the electricity that has a higher cost be used less and less .
And thermoelectric is the third most expensive source, according to data from the Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE).
The displacement of fuel oil has occurred naturally as new wind and solar projects have come into operation as a result of the electricity auctions of the energy reform or other investments made before 2018, explains Paul Sánchez, a specialist in the sector.
And while thermoelectric plants are being used less and less, fuel oil inventories in the country are accumulating on the rise.
Data from the Ministry of Energy suggest that during the week of April 4 to 10 –the most recent data–, inventories of the refining by-product reached 1.2 million barrels, the highest figure since 2017, since the administration began reporting this information.
Pemex, the only fuel oil producer in the country, has already noticed a steady decline in use by CFE, its most important client.
In its latest annual report to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the oil company affirms that its domestic sales of the fuel decreased by 27.8%, from 76,000 barrels per day in 2019 to 55,000 barrels per day. day in 2020, mainly due to a decrease in demand from the company that Manuel Bartlett runs.
And while demand decreases, fuel oil begins to accumulate as a problem for the company, which as it seeks to increase its gasoline production, also adds an increase in the production of polluting fuel.
The state company adds at least 10 months due to the reconfiguration of its refineries and the trend does not seem to be reversing.
A reduction in the purchase of fuel oil by CFE from the state company Pemex would represent for Pemex a more closed door in the sale of the product that has already been prohibited from being used by maritime vessels, due to its high pollutant level.
In the first months of the year, the two state companies signed a fuel oil purchase and sale agreement, of which no details were given and it was confirmed in the minutes of the Pemex board meetings. But for the national electricity company to increase the use of fuel, it needs a series of changes contained in the reform to the Electricity Industry Law that has been stopped in court.
