Page 8 - LatAmOil Week 29 2021

LatAmOil MEXICO LatAmOil

CFE, WhiteWater Midstream

spar over three gas contracts

THE Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), unequal” and pointed to possible conflicts of
Mexico’s national power provider, has been interest, noting that CFEi’s former CEO Guill-
sparring publicly with Whitewater Midstream, ermo Turrent had long-standing ties to White-
a US-based natural gas trader and pipeline Water’s founder Matthew Calhoun.
operator, over three contracts signed in 2016 The state-run power company went on to
and 2017. say that it intended to take legal action against
The dispute burst into the open last week, WhiteWater. Additionally, it said several former
when CFE said it was looking into allegations company representatives were being investi-
of corruption related to the deals. According gated for their involvement in the contracts.
to a company statement, the government-run For its part, WhiteWater denied the accu-
utility is investigating WhiteWater Midstream sations of corruption and levelled its own alle-
for “the delivery of contracts under suspicion gations against CFE. A spokesperson for the
of corruption, abuse of trust and influence ped- company told Natural Gas Intelligence ear-
dling.” These three deals raise concern because lier this week that the state-owned company’s
WhiteWater was at the time “a recently created charges were false and said CFEi was in violation
company [that] did not have assets, experience of its contracts because of non-payment.
in the sector or financial solvency,” it explained. “CFE’s repeated false statements to the media
Two of the contracts under scrutiny are gas about WhiteWater follow our initiation of arbi-
supply deals signed between WhiteWater and tration against CFEi for unpaid amounts owed,”
CFE’s private subsidiary CFE Internacional the spokesperson said. “Particularly disturbing
(CFEi), while the third is a gas transport deal. are the explicit threats from the state-owned
CFE put the value of the third contract at “bil- enterprise to pursue criminal action on con-
lions of dollars” and reported that the deal was tracts that it sought to renegotiate for months,
also under investigation in the US for failure to leveraging its non-payment. WhiteWater will
meet competitive bidding requirements. It also vigorously pursue its contractual rights in arbi-
described the other two as “unfavourable and tration.” ™

Pemex subsidiary suspends

new contracts with Trafigura

PMI Comercio International, a commercial
trading subsidiary of Mexico’s national oil com-
pany (NOC) Pemex, has put a freeze on new
deals with Swiss-based Trafigura, the world’s
largest independent commodity trader.
According to internal company documents
viewed by Reuters, PMI Comercio Interna-
tional, which is responsible for Pemex’s petro-
leum product import business, decided earlier
this month that it would not strike new agree- The trader faces corruption charges (Photo: Trafigura)
ments with Trafigura or any of its subsidiaries
until further notice. One source familiar with were still working with Trafigura.
the matter told the news agency that the Pemex The documents did not state the explicit rea-
affiliate had instructed employees to continue son for this move. Reuters noted, though, that
implementing all existing deals but not to pur- PMI Comercio International was one of several
sue new deals. companies that have shied away from working
Nevertheless, another source reported that with Trafigura in light of corruption allegations
other subsidiaries of the state-owned company against the commodity trader.

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 29 22•July•2021