Price Regulation in a Vertically Integrated Natural Gas Industry: The Case of Mexico

The Comisión Reguladora de Energía of Mexico has implemented a netback rule for linking the Mexican natural gas price to the Texas natural gas benchmark price in an industry structure characterized by a vertically integrated state-owned monopoly. This paper shows that in an open economy where agents can choose between gas and alternative fuels, and where the density function describing the distribution of agents along the pipeline can have mass points, the netback rule is Pareto optimal.