How snowfall in Texas paralyzed the supply chain of the automotive sector in Mexico and the United States

Texas, Mexico's main gas supplier, has been suffering for several days from a severe winter storm that has disrupted natural gas supplies to several power plants in Mexico.

A shortage in the supply of natural gas has caused the largest automaker in North America – Volkswagen, Nissan, General Motors and Ford – have had to almost completely reduce their Car manufacturing in Mexico.

Mexico's National Natural Gas Control Center (Cenegas) ordered companies to reduce their natural gas consumption by up to 99%, a measure that has been taken due to the lack of gas imports from Texas.

Texas, Mexico's main supplier of natural gas, has been suffering in recent days due to a salways twinter storm that has affected the supply of the resource to several electricity generating plants in Mexico, even causing a crisis in the neighboring country to the south.

Reduced gas supplies to car manufacturers' assembly plants are helping what little gas currently exists in Mexico to be used to generate electricity, mainly to power the northern region..

Nissan explained that they had decided until February, several stops planned for March at line 2 of the Aguascalientes plant, while other plants were quickly converted to LPG to maintain production levels.

Ford announced that it will stop production at its plant in Hermosillo, Sonora, due to extreme weather conditions in the north of the country, one of the most affected regions these days. The Hermosillo plant will stop from Saturday, February 13 to Monday, February 22.

Volkswagen is already working on to adjust its production this Thursday and Friday to meet requirements to reduce natural gas consumption. The brand also clarified that the Jetta will end production on Thursday, February 18 and Friday, February 19. While in Taos and Golf it will only be on Friday.

, due to a shortage of natural gas that affects Mexican territory, the Silao complex, Guanajuato, has ceased operations since the night of February 16th.

This is one of the key plants of the American manufacturer in North America, because it manufactures its Chevrolet Silverado, Chevrolet Cheyenne and GMC Sierra pickups there.

"We will tailor a return to production when gas supply is restored to optimal levels," General Motors said in an email..

Toyota Mexico also He said his factories in Guanajuato and Baja California would be shut down for technical reasons and cut production shifts over the next few days due to gas shortages.

Other automakers with factories in Mexico, such as Honda, BMW, Audi and Mazda, are also planning technical shutdowns until natural gas supplies are restored and things return to normal.

Other pharmaceutical and metalworking companies also suffered from the lack of natural gas in the country and even decided to go on a technical strike.

It remains to wait a few more days, as the Texas government banned the export of natural gas until February 21 next year.