Martín Mejía: “We could bring gas to the small north of Lima in 2024”

Cálidda is preparing an investment of US$ 200 million for its new five-year plan 2022-2026 in Lima and Callao. Martín Mejía del Carpio, its general director, assures that they are ready to leave the metropolitan area.

How was 2021 for you?

We built more than 2,200 kilometers of polyethylene networks on the street, a historic milestone that allowed us to reach 250,000 new residential connections. It was a great effort to streamline services, times and protections due to the Covid-19 issue. We are happy with the results. We reached 1.3 million connections that put us at the level of large cities in Latin America with natural gas, since we are exceeding 50% of household connections in our concession.

And throughout the five-year plan 2018-2022?

More than 710,000 home connections were achieved. If today we have 1.3 million, 55% occurred in the last four years. In industry, we achieved almost 50 connections in 2021; meanwhile, in shops we achieved more than 2,380; and there was also a significant number of vehicle connections, as there were 19,000. If we see it in the global plan, we achieved more than 8,900 businesses, and in mobility we converted 66,000 cars. There it is important to mention that there was a desertion of vehicles in the period. Today we have some 194,000 units that are supplied with gas, but in 2017 we ended up with 177,000. That is a relevant issue, if they had not deserted we would have more than 230,000.

Have you already presented the new five-year plan 2022-2026?

Yes. This year we should build more than 1,200 km of pipes to continue increasing the residential scope. We already have large clients covered in Lima, but we still have work to do in the residential sector. If you look at our connections, you can see there’s over 160,000 in SJL, 120,000 in SMP, to tell you a few big districts. However, 94% of residential connections have been made in homes in sectors C, D and E, while in sectors A and B we still do not have networks.

Will they extend their concession?

With this new five-year plan, we practically finished in Lima. What would be missing, and that we must discuss with the Government, is the zone of the north boy. We are going to carry out environmental impact studies and preliminary work to present a proposal to bring gas to an area where a longer gas pipeline is needed than the one that crosses from Lurín to Ventanilla, and which requires a significant investment. The other option is to take it virtually (tank trucks). The idea is not to make the rate more expensive, but to keep it at adequate levels. Other areas that we are studying are the hills of Lima. We are going to carry out the previous studies in these first two years of the plan, and then incorporate them as long as they are approved by Osinergmin and Minem. We have already raised it and we are waiting for a response.

How much is the investment?

We have more than US$ 600 million invested in the last plan, and in this new period we are talking about approximately US$ 200 million, which could be increased if the overcrowding in the small north and the hills of Lima is accepted.

What comes next?

It is important to start looking at other areas of the country. One of the Government’s proposals is to massify in areas without concession, such as that of the former 7 regions project. There are several solutions and companies are always willing to help. They are projects that are unattractive for the private sector, but with significant social profitability that the Executive is considering attending to with its own resources.

The subsidies helped.

The FISE has been fundamental in boosting the number of home connections in recent years. In 2016, we made no more than 100,000. This year we closed with 250,000, basically thanks to these subsidies. We believe it is convenient that they be extended to other cities.❖