The government has ordered the beginning of the development of the infrastructure for the massification of natural gas in the regions of Cusco, Puno, Apurímac, Arequipa, Moquegua, Tacna, Ayacucho and Ucayali, as announced yesterday by the president of the republic, Pedro Castillo.
“We have unparalleled agricultural, mining and gas wealth, and we will not allow our resources to be misused. Peru has to be a fair and equitable country and that our benefits guarantee better living conditions and opportunities for all Peruvian families ”, emphasized the president through his social networks.
Current situation
Currently, natural gas arrives through the gas pipeline network to Lima, Callao and Ica. Meanwhile, the energy of the Lot 88 It also reaches Áncash, La Libertad, Lambayeque, Cajamarca, Arequipa, Moquegua, Tacna and Piura, but through LNG trucks or virtual gas pipelines.
As of July of this year, these concessions in charge of private operators, with the exception of the south west concession (Arequipa, Moquegua and Tacna) now operated by Petroperú –DS-029, which entrusts it with the Naturgy concession with Fise resources–, They have made it possible to have 1 million 398,834 residential natural gas connections nationwide.
Official government forecasts estimate that as of December this year, connections would reach 1,600,000. By 2025, it is estimated that there would be 2 million 585,058 residential users of natural gas.
Another figure that supports the need to decentralize natural gas is that, currently, 84% of total connections are in Lima and Callao.
It is important to mention that those homes that do not have natural gas today use LPG (a 10-kilo cylinder) or some other substitute. The advantage of natural gas is that it comes from Block 88 and is cheaper than LPG because it has a regulated price, while LPG depends on the international price. Thus, households would no longer have to face continuous price increases. A second advantage is that natural gas is 40% less polluting than LPG.
Project for regions
For the rest of the regions not yet under concession, in particular those located in the central and southern highlands of the country, which are those with the highest poverty rates, but from where, paradoxically, natural gas is extracted, past governments have sought to make it a private initiative. that carries the energy resource.
This project, known as 7 regions (Apurímac, Ayacucho, Huancavelica, Junín, Cusco, Puno and Ucayali) failed after many bidding attempts due to lack of interest from the market, call it insufficient economic interest from the private sector.
After ProInversión, after several unsuccessful tenders, declared this contest void -in June this year-, the government of the day announced that it would take over the construction of the natural gas distribution networks. The commission would fall, again, on Petroperú and everything would be done with resources from the Social Energy Inclusion Fund (Fise).
Government Plan
This plan was reaffirmed by the government of Pedro Castillo. At the beginning of September, Iván Merino, today a former Minister of Energy and Mines, announced in the Energy and Mines Commission of Congress a new massification project in the regions that would generate, in less time, a greater number of beneficiaries. The number of households increased from 133,000 to 400,000 families with natural gas after 5 years.
According to the plan presented in Congress, the priority regions this year would be Ayacucho and Ucayali, where there are direct connections to gas fields. Humberto Campodónico, former president of Petroperú, explained that these regions are prioritized because in Ucayali there are the Aguaytía fields that produce natural gas (Lot 31-C) owned by Orazul (Aguaytía Energy). While in the case of Ayacucho, the gas pipeline that takes the gas from Block 88 to Lima passes “in front” of the city.
A second stage includes Cusco, while the third stage includes Huancavelica, Junín, Apurímac and Puno.
Between infrastructure and installation costs, the investment planned by Minem would be slightly above the US $ 1 billion that would be paid with resources from the sheets and / or the Hydrocarbon Energy Security System (Sise).
The state-owned company Petroperú, after publication of the supreme decree that empowers it, would be in charge of the development of natural gas networks in these 7 regions.
“The international experience of neighboring countries that have massified gas, efficiently and profitably, such as Argentina, Bolivia and Colombia, have built a national network of gas pipelines that connect cities. This should also be part of our policy since the experiences of Naturgy and Quavii, which are supplied with tanker trucks, have prices that are double that of the gas that reaches Lima and Ica by gas pipeline ”, he asserted Campodonic.
Design omissions
The Presidency of the Council of Ministers (PCM), through a supreme resolution, approved adding the regions of Ayacucho and Ucayali to the scope of the final report of the Multisectoral Commission, through which the development of the natural gas infrastructure will be analyzed for the advance of its overcrowding also in the regions of Cusco, Puno, Apurímac, Arequipa, Moquegua and Tacna.
Despite this adjustment in the design, the scope of this report does not contemplate -for the moment- the regions of Junín and Huancavelica, which register high rates of poverty.
Reactions
Pedro Castillo, President of the Republic
“Fulfilling the commitments assumed with the people, my Government has ordered the beginning of the development of the infrastructure for the massification of natural gas in the regions of Cusco, Puno, Apurímac, Arequipa, Moquegua, Tacna, Ayacucho and Ucayali ”.
Humberto Campodónico, former president of Petroperú
“It was not started before with this criterion of massification because successive governments have applied, on the one hand, the criterion of economic profitability, leaving aside social profitability and, on the other, the criterion of subsidiarity of the State’s business activity ”.
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