President Claudia Sheinbaum indicated on Wednesday that her government could allow a form of sustainable fracking in order to increase domestic production of natural gas, a fuel that Mexico currently imports from the United States in large quantities.
A decision to allow the controversial oil and gas extraction technique would effectively reverse the policy of the previous federal government, which, under former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, blocked the execution of fracking projects.
Sheinbaum herself pledged in late 2024 that there would be no hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, during her government.
However, at her Wednesday morning press conference, the president acknowledged that a group of experts is assessing whether it’s “feasible” to carry out fracking with recycled water and “other chemicals” and “other ways that don’t have the environmental impacts that hydraulic fracturing has today.”
“All the gas that we import from Texas comes from hydraulic fracturing,” she said.
“So, this is a study, there is no decision [yet] and everything will be transparent,” Sheinbaum said.
“But there is a very important thing and that’s sovereignty. How can we produce more gas in our country while increasing renewable sources of energy?” added the president, who noted that Mexico imports from the United States around 75% of the natural gas it uses and highlighted that many Mexican power plants depend on the fuel.
Sheinbaum acknowledged that she opposed fracking for “many years” due to concerns about contamination and the use of water “in places where there is no water.”
But “the quest” now is to develop “technologies that don’t have these environmental impacts and which allow gas to be obtained without contaminating, with water recycling and other schemes, and in places where there is no nearby population,” she said.
“But it is still under study,” Sheinbaum stressed.
She also emphasized that fracking could only take place with the approval of local communities.
“But yes, it’s a topic for general discussion about how we can strengthen the energy sovereignty of our country,” Sheinbaum said.
The president’s remarks came six months after the federal government presented a 10-year strategic plan for state oil company Pemex. At the time, Reuters reported that fracking “to tap unconventional hydrocarbon deposits and boost oil and gas production” is part of the plan. The news agency also wrote that Sheinbaum had “signed off on the production method, … even though she had said during her 2024 election campaign she would not allow it.”
While the López Obrador administration vetoed fracking operations, “Pemex has been fracking for years in some onshore fields near the Gulf of Mexico coast,” Reuters reported in August, adding that the state oil company “does not disclose how much production is generated that way.”
Based on the president’s remarks on Wednesday, the expansion of fracking in Mexico is possible, even likely, but not certain.
What is certain is that Sheinbaum is no longer completely opposed to the oil and gas extraction technique that has long been strongly opposed by environmental groups and activists around the world.
The El País newspaper reported earlier this month that experts and “politicians in Sheinbaum’s inner circle” to whom it spoke say that the president has reached the conclusion that “it’s worth facing the political cost” associated with allowing fracking in order to “take advantage of the resources already identified by Pemex in the states of Coahuila, Tamaulipas and Veracruz.”
“The objective behind this major pragmatic shift is for Mexico to stop depending on natural gas imports from the United States and achieve energy sovereignty,” El País wrote.
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The production potential of fracking
Citing affirmations made by the Tamaulipas Ministry of Energy Development based on calculations by Russian energy company Lukoil, the El Economista newspaper reported that the production of liquid hydrocarbons in Mexico could increase by 700,000 barrels per day via fracking.
However, the increased production would come at a significant financial cost. Lukoil estimates that an investment of US $308 billion is required to develop natural gas projects “in non-conventional fields.”
El País reported that Pemex would seek private investment in order to develop fracking projects, but it mentioned a much lower outlay of around $1 billion “to reactivate wells that have already been studied.”
According to the 10-year plan for Pemex, the exploitation of unconventional natural gas resources in Mexico would lead to a cumulative addition of 303 billion cubic feet of gas by 2030.
Reuters reported that “Pemex’s plan highlighted technological advances made over the last decade in well design, drilling and completion that it said would minimize environmental impacts and preserve freshwater resources.”
Alfredo Guzmán, a former deputy director of exploration at Pemex, told El País that “northern Mexico has enough natural gas, in both tight and permeable rock formations, to meet the country’s needs and have surpluses for export.”
“All that’s needed is for the authorities to authorize the projects to extract it,” he said.
Guzmán highlighted that fracking has occurred in Mexico since the 1960s, and declared that it’s a “safe technique.”
Ariel Valenzuela, a former Pemex productivity coordinator, said that Mexico is “completely vulnerable as a country because practically 70% to 80% of our gas comes from the United States.”
“If they decide to cut off our supply, they’ll leave us in the dark. So, if we have that resource right now, why not try to use it? For national security, it should be a priority,” he told El País.
Alma Porres, a former chief of Mexico’s National Hydrocarbons Commission, noted that “the gas we import from the United States comes from unconventional fields.”
“And just as deposits cross borders, so does the environment. If we say we are going to protect the environment, the reality is that right across the border they are exploiting unconventional fields; in other words, our environmental logic doesn’t hold up here,” she told El País.
“Instead, we should be looking at how to use the most innovative techniques to protect the environment on our side, and how to enforce the strictest regulations to ensure that protection, while also meeting the [energy sovereignty] goals set by this government. Regulations work, and the government should oversee the entire unconventional‑extraction chain to ensure they are followed, so that the public knows it will be done safely,” Porres said.
‘President, remember your promise: No to fracking’
The Mexican Alliance against Fracking, a collective made up of more than 40 non-government organizations, posted a clear message to its X account on Wednesday: “President, remember your promise: No to fracking.”
The alliance also published “10 lies with which they want to sell fracking to us,” each of which it sought to debunk.
“Fracking is the route toward the country’s energy independence,” was one of the alleged lies.
“Fracking makes us dependent on foreign companies,” the anti-fracking alliance countered.
🧵 Averigua las 10 razones por las que rechazamos y exigimos la prohibición del Fracking. pic.twitter.com/ipRPagN5Bm
— No Fracking Mx (@NoFrackingMx) February 18, 2026
The alliance also sought to debunk claims that fracking is safe and uses insignificant amounts of water.
“Fracking continues contaminating the environment,” it said in response to one of the alleged “lies.”
“Fracking causes water stress and competes with human consumption and agricultural use,” the alliance wrote in response to another.
Alliance spokesperson Beatriz Olivera told El País that “treated water can be used” in fracking, but doing so is “expensive, and the industry prefers to minimize costs to maximize productivity.”
She also said that fracking requires a “cocktail” of hundreds of chemicals that can contaminate groundwater.
Olivera called on Sheinbaum to “listen to the voices of the people.”
“It seems she is only listening to the industry and fracking promoters,” she said.
In a statement published by Greenpeace after the presentation of the Pemex plan last August, the Mexican Alliance Against Fracking accused Sheinbaum of “betraying” the people who elected her due to her apparent shift in opinion on fracking.
“The technical language of the plan is carefully designed to avoid the forbidden word: ‘fracking.’ Instead, it refers to ‘complex geological formations,’ ‘new extraction schemes,’ and ‘unconventional plays,’ in clear reference to formations that require hydraulic fracturing. References to experiences in the United States and Argentina, the use of technologies to reduce freshwater consumption, and the need for private participation to address financial risks are unmistakable signs that fracking is back, disguised as energy innovation,” the alliance wrote.
“Fracking poses severe and unacceptable risks to human and environmental health. Exposure to pollutants released by this technique — such as heavy metals, aromatic hydrocarbons, fine particles, radioactive substances, and endocrine disruptors — has been linked to birth defects, miscarriages, cancer, neurological damage, and chronic respiratory diseases, even at low doses and in populations far from the wells,” it said.
Among the NGO’s that belong to the Mexican Alliance against Fracking are Greenpeace México, Oxfam México and the Center for Biological Diversity.
With reports from El Economista, El País and Reuters
