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Lisa Viscidi, director of the Energy, Climate Change and Extractive Industries Program, sat down with Natural Gas World to discuss her recent report, Latin American State Oil Companies: Decarbonization Strategies and Role in the Energy Transition.
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2020 has been a tumultuous year for Latin America’s energy sector. The global pandemic has led to a sharp decline in oil demand and prices even as clean energy investments accelerate. With presidential elections around the corner in the United States, the future of US energy diplomacy in the region is unclear. Industry executives, government officials, and corporate representatives convened to discuss the challenges and opportunities in today’s energy markets during the virtual Fourth Annual Energy Conference.
Over the past two years, the government of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has sought to strip away central aspects of the 2013 energy reform that increased private investment in the power sector and return control of the sector to state utility CFE. These moves will reduce needed investment in the sector and lead to higher electricity costs for Mexican industry and manufacturing, affecting employment, trade, and Mexico’s ability to meet its clean energy targets, according to this new report by the Inter-American Dialogue.
Covid-19 has devastated the Peruvian economy. But as the country seeks to rebuild in the virus’s wake, it has a chance to focus on fighting climate change and creating a more sustainable development model. The extractive industries central to Peru’s economy are a source of underutilized revenues that could help seize this opportunity.
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As the energy transition gathers pace and Latin American countries raise their emissions reduction targets, private companies are revising their business models to meet demand for renewable energy and other solutions. The United States has also reemerged as a partner on climate action in the region. This webinar explored the current and potential role of the private sector in Latin America’s energy transition and how the United States can provide support.
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On June 14, the Atlantic Council and the Energy Futures Initiative held a webinar on the role of natural gas in the transition to zero-carbon energy systems. Lisa Viscidi, director of the Energy, Climate Change & Extractive Industries Program at the Dialogue, spoke about financing natural gas infrastructure in Latin America.
Tania Ortiz Mena, former CEO of IEnova, a leading energy company in Mexico, was appointed as president of the Clean Energy and Infrastructure group of the company Sempra Infraestructura, as well as president of Sempra Infraestructura for Mexico.
As delegates from around the world finish up their business in Glasgow at the United Nations climate conference, Mexico has not increased its emissions-mitigation goal, as countries pledged under the 2015 Paris Agreement. Its president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is doubling down on policies that would make his country the second-largest greenhouse gas emitter in Latin America and the 16th largest in the world, even more of a polluter.
Lisa Viscidi, director of the Energy Program, gave a presentation to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Mexican energy policy under AMLO and its implications for US-Mexico energy trade.
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Brazil has vast oil reserves, but can the Bolsonaro government get the energy to market? Lisa Viscidi tells Richard Miles of CSIS that reforms are already in place that will enable oil production “to take off.” The real obstacles are the financial stability of Petrobras, the shaky state oil conglomerate, and the monopoly that the state has on most aspects of energy production, delivery, and even retail sales.
Revitalizing Brazil’s energy sector will be key to Jair Bolsonaro’s success as president – but so far, he’s had mixed results when it comes to getting reforms through Congress. Unless Bolsonaro learns to work with legislators and ease turbulence within his government, Brazil’s missing energy reforms will continue to threaten its economy, and its politics.
Just as Pemex bonds suffered a downgrading to junk status by Fitch, Lisa Viscidi, director of the Energy Program, sat down with Nathaniel Parish Flannery of Forbes to discuss the state of Mexico’s energy sector, including oil and gas, regulators, and renewables, seven months into the AMLO administration.
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The development of energy resources is an integral component of many of Latin America’s economies, from established producers like Colombia and Brazil to newcomers to the global energy market like freshly oil-rich Guyana. However, policymakers and energy companies throughout the region must devise solutions to a variety of fiscal, political, social, and environmental hurdles to ensure successful and sustainable projects, explained speakers at an Inter-American Dialogue event on May 10.
Regulators and private companies will continue to play important roles in the development of Mexico’s energy resources despite President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s focus on strengthening state-owned companies and enhancing “energy sovereignty” by reducing dependence on energy imports from the United States. This was the key message from speakers at “La nueva política energética de México,” an Inter-American Dialogue event in Mexico City.
Mexico’s 2013 energy reform has led to pledges of almost $200 billion of private investment and renewable power auctions garnering bids to provide electricity at record-low prices. The Mexican government should continue to build on the successes of the reform, César Hernández, former Mexican undersecretary for electricity, and Jorge Castilla, managing director for Mexico at Accenture, said at an event hosted by the Inter-American Dialogue, the Embassy of Mexico, and the Energy Policy Research Foundation.
