The regulator has sanctioned Pemex with 9.1 million pesos for violations of environmental legislation and for irregularities in its industrial processes. But all the fines have been filed from 2015 – the year the agency was created – to 2017. After that year, the ASEA has not taken any other measure to fine the state oil company.
The regulator has become relevant in recent weeks, after the two accidents that occurred in July and August at the Ku Maloob Zaap asset. The agency will be in charge of reviewing the root cause investigations that the oil company must present for the fires that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico and on one of its platforms.
The Superior Audit of the Federation has indicated failures in the operation of the regulator and a low capacity to carry out its functions. In one of his latest reports, he assured that during 2020 the agency incurred in administrative sub-regulation and approved energy projects without the assurance that they would comply with the regulations of care for the environment and the safety of people. “A sub-regulation was observed in terms of the procedures required to carry out activities in the hydrocarbon sector, which constitutes risks that, even with the issuance of manuals for the relief of procedures, sub-regulation in matters of the hydrocarbon sector could affect in the impossibility, on the part of the agency, of evaluating projects with characteristics similar to that of the Dos Bocas Refinery ”, reads one of the Audit reports.
The specialists consulted point out that, since its creation, the ASEA has not been endowed with autonomy and strength like some of the other regulators of the energy market. After the entry of the current administration, the body, like the other energy regulators, has seen a weakening as an authority, derived from the presidential intention to return the leadership to the state-owned Pemex and CFE.
And that, they agree, has diminished the regulatory role of institutions such as ASEA. “I think there are two very important points that explain what has happened (in the agency): the profile of its executive director and the number of people who are part of the organization,” says Raymundo Sánchez, a former Pemex consultant.
The agency has seen a steady decline in its budget in recent years. In 2018 – the last year of the past six-year term – it had 614 million pesos, for this 2021 its budget has dropped to 277 million. The cut in resources, says Sánchez, has diminished the number and training of specialists working within the institution.
Ángel Carrizales, who now heads the organization, has drawn attention since he started in office. The former member of the assistantship of the president was proposed on several occasions by the executive to occupy positions in the state-owned Pemex, the Energy Regulatory Commission and the National Hydrocarbons Commission, but in none of them was he approved by the Senate. He finally arrived at ASEA in 2019, a position that only depends on a presidential decision.