Mexico Cooking Fuel War Is Newest Sign of Pemex Competition Woes
- State company’s LPG imports plunge in first year of new system
- Reform also may bring competition to gasoline, diesel markets
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Mexico’s state-run energy company, suffering from budget cuts and ballooning debt, now may be losing its grip on a fuel widely used by the nation’s residents to cook their food and heat their water.
A government overhaul of Mexico’s energy sector in January for the first time gave companies other than Petroleos Mexicanos the ability to import liquefied petroleum gases such as propane and butane. That means dozens of distributors who had spent years building transport networks for Pemex can now carry their own imported propane, largely cutting the state-owned energy company out of the supply chain.