Southern Cone gas and power short-term outlook: August 2023

The startup of the Nestor Kirchner pipeline and milder temperatures have eased LNG requirements, shrinking the need for LNG to near zero in September. The country has also progressed towards the Gasoducto del Norte reversal this month. In this sense, Enarsa launched a tender for works to reverse the pipeline and plans to conclude it before the winter of 2024, which would eliminate the dependency on Bolivian gas. On the power side, the Brazilian interconnected system suffered a 16 GW interruption in power load, leading to an 81% m-o-m increase in thermal dispatch due to electrical restrictions and inflexibility terms. Chile increased 54% of solar generation y-o-y, but transmission constraints led to more than 270 GWh curtailment levels in August.