Since then we have talked to several sources who say that company plans to bring in imports for their own LPG distribution systems are much more advanced than we were led to believe three weeks ago.

Exhibit A is the owners of the two LPG marine terminals at Tuxpan in the northern part of Veracruz state, 93 miles south of Tampico. Both terminals were built as service facilities for Pemex, the only legal importer of petroleum products until last month, which signed contracts for the full capacity of each terminal.

Grupo Tomza was first, putting up a terminal in 2007 with 215,000 bbl capacity, or 18,000 tons (18 KT) in six pressure spheres of 3 KT capacity each. The terminal is situated about 10 miles south of the Rio Tuxpan entrance to the main Tuxpan harbor. Sited next to the Termoelectrica Chile Frio power plant, the terminal is on the open shoreline.

Instead of a dock, a Tomza manager told OPIS that it has an offshore mooring system about three miles out. For offloading a cargo, a tanker slides into a mooring berth formed by eight buoys. With a system like this, Tomza is completely free of draft restrictions and can receive any size gas carrier.

The other Tuxpan terminal, under the Termigas banner, was built in 2012 by a consortium led by Gas Express Nieto as majority partner. Minority partners include Grupo Uribe and Gas Metropolitano of Mexico City, and Gas Mabarak of Veracruz. Termigas is located inside the entrance to the Rio Tuxpan, which offers a major harbor that is home to the Mexican navy’s Gulf Fleet.

The Termigas terminal has twice the capacity of Tomza’s terminal, 36 KT in 10 spheres of 3.6 KT or 43,000 bbl each. The terminal can be seen on Google Maps about a half-mile back from the south bank of Rio Tuxpan, where there’s a two-berth unloading dock.

To close the capacity gap between the terminals, Tomza told OPIS that it has approved a project to add five more 3-KT spheres, which would add 15 KT and raise terminal capacity to 33 KT. It’s still not quite enough capacity to offload a VLGC carrying 44 KT, but it will be more than enough to take full midsize gas carrier (MGC) cargoes of 20 KT, or half cargoes from VLGCs.

Tomza also noted what they consider a distinct comparative advantage. With their buoy system for offshore unloading, they will never face draft restrictions and are ready to take VLGCs now. By contrast, the Rio Tuxpan requires continuous dragging operations to maintain a channel for ocean-going ships. The presence of the navy base assures that those dragging operations take place, but there are limits, and they are less than the draft of a VLGC.

OPIS spoke with one of the Termigas partners and was surprised to learn that they fully expect to be importing product for their own account by 3rdQtr 2016. We asked how they could get there that fast in light of the Pemex contract for all the capacity, the contract that allowed them to build the terminal in the first place.

We received a two-part answer. The first was that the regulatory path to obtaining an import license was smoother than they expected. That process is going well, as indicated by another company in the OPIS Jan. 28 article, and they expect to be a licensed importer in short order.

The other matter is the Pemex contract, which does not appear to be the barrier that many anticipated. Pemex can certainly charge a fee for use of their space, but the Comision Reguladora de Energia (CRE) is there to see that open access is not an empty slogan but an operating principle. There was also a hint that the term of the Pemex contract was not as long as outsiders thought, and may be drawing to a close during 2016.

As for Tomza, the manager says it is ready to supply its whole system in the central region by 3rdQtr 2016. Its terminal has been in operation eight years supplying the central region, Mexico City and surroundings, which constitutes 40% of Mexico’s entire LPG market. It does not have a pipeline from Tuxpan to the center, like Termigas has, but long-distance truck hauls have worked perfectly well.

With completion of the CN-132D tollway slicing through the forbidding terrain of the Sierra Madre Oriental, its big transports, pulling two 10,000-gallon trailers, can make the run to Mexico City in seven hours. There, it can make deliveries to Tomza’s main terminal, under the brand Unigas, just north of the city in Tlalnepantla de Baz.

According to regulatory filings, Unigas has about 870,000 gal storage capacity. The capacity is split between 10 big salchichas (sausages) around 60,000 gal apiece and nine smaller 30k-gal salchichas. Five double-trailer loads per day could replenish supplies at a daily rate of 100,000 gal.

At the other end of the logistics chain, Tomza already owns the VLGC Albert. Since inception of operations in 2014, it has transported monthly loads to Pemex at the Pajaritos Terminal. Tomza tells OPIS that at least some of Albert’s capacity will now be switched to Tuxpan, where it will take delivery of imported tons to deliver to Mexico City for its own account.

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