Freezing cold weather in Texas leading disrupts electricity supply in Mexico

The icy weather in the U.S. state of Texas left nearly five million people in northern Mexico without power early Monday as a shortage of natural gas disrupted electricity production. The Mexican government, the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), said Monday its operations were halted when the winter storm in Texas halted natural gas pipelines.

Mexico uses gas to produce about 60 percent of its power, as compared to about 40 percent in the United States. The country has built pipelines to take advantage of cheap natural gas from its northern neighbor.

Over the weekend, a freezer across Texas claimed the energy industry in the largest U.S. land-producing state, which closed oil refineries and put restrictions on natural gas pipeline operators.

The Mexican utility said it had restored power to about 65 percent of the 4.8 million customers affected by the eclipse by noon, mainly in the northern border states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas.

A smaller number of users have also been affected in Durango and Zacatecas.

The CFE's director of fuel purchasing, Miguel Reyes Hernandez, stated the Texas situation was weakening the import of gas that Mexico uses to run many of its power plants.

"Demand for power light in the United States has increased by just over 20 percent in just four days," Reyes Hernandez said.

'The increase was precisely due to the drop in temperatures, and obviously, the use of heating in the United States meant an increase in the demand for natural gas, and precisely because of the low temperatures, there was a decrease in renewable energy."

He said that American wind turbines "caused their blades to freeze ... and that there were freezes in many pipelines and even at wells."

In Midland, the heart of the West Texas shale province, there is a record snowfall and temperatures that hit 32-year-old low offices and businesses. The temperature is presumed to grow above freezing on Tuesday.

Earlier Monday, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador rejected proposals that the outbreak could be linked to a "boycott" by private generators who were upset about his plan to bolster the CFE.