The recent oil price collapse, combined with the economic contraction resulting from measures to fight the global Covid-19 pandemic, will have extensive and largely unforetold impacts for Latin American energy markets and beyond. These implications include cuts to investment and delays to ongoing projects in both oil & gas and renewable energy, fiscal and broader economic constraints, and legal disputes, said panelists during a webinar held on April 1.
The US has introduced several measures to facilitate energy & infrastructure investment in Latin America. However, the impact will likely be constrained by the challenging investment environment in many Latin American countries, demonstrating the limitations for the US in competing with China’s centralized economic model.
2019 has been a tumultuous year for South America. In recent months, mass protests have swept across several countries, including major oil and gas producers Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia. Continued political and social turbulence will likely contribute to stagnant oil and gas production growth in these countries. Conversely, Brazil and Guyana are on track to become the region’s largest sources of supply growth.
This event, hosted in collaboration with the Institute of the Americas, aimed to examine the issues facing Mexico’s climate for energy investment across various sectors including power, renewables, oil and natural gas.
La directora del Programa de Energía, Cambio Climático e Industrias Extractivas, Lisa Viscidi, habló con el Comité Español del Consejo Mundial de la Energía (CECME) sobre el debate entre la privatización y el nacionalismo de los recursos en Latinoamérica y la transición energética.
Lisa Viscidi, director of the Energy, Climate Change and Extractive Industries Program, gave a presentation to the Energy Working Group of the Elcano Institute on clean energy auctions in Latin America and how their intelligent design could benefit other countries in the region.
2019 marks the first year since new leaders in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico took office. We can now see more clearly the way their policy decisions have affected the energy sector and opportunities for investment. Meanwhile, Argentina holds presidential elections later this month. Venezuela, in turn, faces a worsening economic crisis as oil production plummets. Industry experts, government officials, and corporate representatives convened to discuss these issues and their regional impacts on October 2 at the Inter-American Dialogue.
On September 17, 2019 the OAS, in collaboration with the Inter-American Dialogue hosted the event “Challenges and Opportunities for Electric Mobility in the Americas” to discuss the progress of electric mobility uptake in the region.
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.
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.
Lisa Viscidi, Richard Miles
Interviews ˙
˙ Center for Strategic & International Studies
La directora del Programa de Energía Lisa Viscidi habló con NTN24 sobre por qué a Rusia le interesa formar parte de la OPEP (Organización de Países Exportadores de Petróleo) a pesar de los problemas que esto supone para el país.
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.
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.
In a wide-ranging panel about current events in energy, Lisa Viscidi commented on the shift in the US energy trade balance and its effects on foreign policy, Chinese financing for foreign energy projects, the importance of upgrading transmission lines for expanding renewable power generation, and how the Green New Deal attempts to reframe the discussion on climate change in the US.
