Snapshot: Peruvian gas distributor Cálidda’s expansion options

Peru’s principal natural gas distributor Cálidda, which serves Lima and Callao, has the potential to extend its network by around 3,000km.

Mario Caballero, finance director for the company, controlled by Grupo Energía Bogotá, provided the estimate during a presentation.

He highlighted that such a build-out would take connections to between 2.3mn and 2.4mn from 1.9mn, but that the pace of work may slow.

“We are at a point of maturation in all the work we have been doing in the concession... we do hope to continue having growth; however, it is going to be marginally smaller," Caballero said.

Cálidda, whose 33-year concession began in 2020, forecasts that capex in 2025-28 will total US$122mn, compared with this year’s expected US$113mn.

The distributor has submitted a proposal to the energy and mines ministry to extend its contract by 10 years.

Seven regions project

Caballero also pitched Cálidda’s plan to add new impetus to the project to distribute gas in the Apurímac, Ayacucho, Huancavelica, Junín, Cusco, Puno and Ucayali regions.

Attempts by investment promotion agency ProInversión to offer the project as a concession have failed, primarily due to weak industrial demand in the area.

Source: Cálidda

“The proposal that we have brought [to the government] and that solves this problem and is a win-win for Peru, for the population and obviously also for Cálidda, is to combine investment and demand in some other way with what we have in Lima and Callao. With that, one basically generates a cross subsidy which would allow the rate in Ucayali, Puno to be exactly the same as that in Callao,” the finance director said.

He added that the rate increase in Lima and Callao would be marginal, and practically not be felt due to competitiveness of gas.

“We are closing the scope of the negotiation of the contractual part, and what would come next is an analysis by the ministry of economy and finance that involves reviewing the economic-financial balance of the contract.”

Source: Cálidda

The figures

This year, Cálidda expects to add 170,000-180,000 connections and reach between 1.9mn and 2.0mn connections, as well as to expand its network by 950km, which totaled 17,943km at end-September.

According to the distributor, its network penetration rate stood at 79% at the end of the third quarter.

As of September 30, the company had 1.93mn clients in the residential and commercial segment (+11.5% year-on-year), as well as 892 industries (+7.1%), 294 natural gas vehicle (NGV) stations (+0.7%) and 34 power generators (+17.2%) as customers.

Cálidda’s 3Q24 sales volume quarter slid 3% year-on-year to 813Mf³/d, which the company attributed to greater “extraordinary” demand in 2023, offset by increased offtake in the industrial, NGV, and residential and commercial sectors.

The bulk of last quarter’s gas went to electricity generators (69%), followed by industrial users (17.1%), NGV (9.35%) and residential and commercial customers (4.18%).