The Asociación Mexicana de Empresas de Hidrocarburos (AMEXHI) estimates that 24 unconventional gas projects in northern Mexico would require $108 billion in investment to produce close to 9 billion cubic feet per day. El Financiero published the analysis on September 3, 2026.
Merlín Cochran, AMEXHI's director general, presented the scenario at the Energy Infrastructure Forum of the Consejo Coordinador Empresarial (CCE). He described the exercise as hypothetical: it maps out what would be needed if Mexico produced in the north the gas it currently demands, and he acknowledged that mobilizing resources of that scale is unrealistic under current conditions. The figure matters because domestic production falls short of consumption and imported gas sets the sector's cost benchmark; the number captures the scale of substitution required to replace that gas with northern production. Expansión reported the same estimate on September 2 and added that private-sector interest exists, with profitability as the outstanding variable.
The obstacles Cochran identified extend beyond capital. Even if a contract were awarded today, he estimated that regulatory processes would push first production roughly seven years out, with peak output arriving in approximately a decade. Initial wells would cost around 250 percent more due to the absence of equipment, inputs, and infrastructure to transport the gas. On the fiscal side, an AMEXHI comparison places government take at between 60 and 65 percent in other countries on the continent and between 85 and 90 percent under a mixed contract in Mexico; the association considers it necessary to pursue frameworks closer to international parameters, where these projects operate under license contracts. Cochran noted that Mexico's resources are classified as prospective, not as reserves, and that AMEXHI considers it necessary to continue technical work to determine their potential.
The figure puts a precise scale on the gap between Mexico's gas imports and the potential of its unconventional resources, a potential that has yet to be measured. AMEXHI's proposed next step is the technical evaluation of those resources; whether the estimate ever translates into projects will depend on those results.
This article was written with artificial intelligence assistance from verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.