The Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) intensifies the step against Whitewater Midstream, a US company that became its main foreign supplier of natural gas under the Government of Enrique Peña Nieto. According to a folder of almost 1,100 pages of documents, the CFE began a judicial process in a federal court in Texas on April 14 as part of an investigation against former officials Guillermo Turrent and Javier Gutiérrez.
EL PAÍS revealed in July 2021 that executives of the gas marketer located in Austin, Whitewater Midstream, have been in league with Turrent, a former CFE official, for more than 20 years. Under the Enrique Peña Nieto administration, CFE’s private arm abroad, called CFE International (CFEI), awarded Whitewater contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to supply Mexico with the natural gas it needs to generate electricity.
As of the publication, CFE hired a private investigation company in the United States to explore the existence of possible corruption, influence peddling and damage to the treasury. It was this company that delivered to the court in Texas the evidence and material to support CFE, which alleges that the contracts awarded to Whitewater and its founder Matthew Calhoun were made in violation of Mexican law. In Mexico, there is an open criminal process before the Attorney General’s Office (FGR).
“The Mexican criminal proceeding involves allegations that, in December 2016, Javier Gutiérrez Becerril, former director of CFE and former general director of operations of CFEi, and Guillermo Turrent Schnaas, former director of CFE and former general director of CFEi, as public servants, violated the Mexican Constitution and criminal and procurement laws by improperly awarding to a US company, WhiteWater Midstream LLC (WWM) and its subsidiaries and affiliates, massive natural gas contracts to build, transport and market gas in a Texas pipeline whose construction was sponsored by CFE”, says the document issued to the federal court of the western district of Texas and to which EL PAÍS had access.
“These contracts, with estimated revenues for WWM of hundreds of millions of dollars during the term of the agreement, were awarded by Gutiérrez and Turrent for the benefit of WWM and to the detriment of Mexico and its people,” he says. The documents were published by the legal news site Offshorealertlocated in Miami.
One of the contracts between CFEI and Whitewater, which has a value of more than three million dollars a day and a duration of 15 years, is the center of a renegotiation by Mexican authorities, who seek to eliminate Whitewater for being a ” abusive intermediary”. The documents issued in Texas show that there are at least four other contracts awarded to Calhoun, founder of Whitewater and a second company called Antaeus Group, which the CFE has under scrutiny.
CFE presented its case before the court in the neighboring country to ask the US judicial system to force Antaeus to hand over information about the communication and interactions that the company had with Gutiérrez and Turrent. Even, CFE alleges in the documents, Gutiérrez was employed by Antaeus shortly before joining CFE, which would represent a conflict of interest.
According to another document from the US energy regulator, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), dated 2018, CFE granted Antaeus Group the rights to build a natural gas pipeline in the state of Texas. Antaeus did not build the pipeline, but instead leased the rights for a third party to build and operate it for a fee of $2.1 million per month for Antaeus’ benefit.
“There is no evidence that Calhoun or Antaeus Group contributed shares or capital to obtain a stake in the project. Therefore, it appears that the transaction…may have been structured to provide Antaeus Group (and thus Calhoun and potentially Gutiérrez) with an unearned financial interest in the project to the detriment of CFE and CFEi,” the issued document reads. this week in Texas. “Calhoun, through Gutiérrez and Turrent, sought to orchestrate, and in some cases succeeded in orchestrating, transactions with CFE in which Calhoun, through Antaeus Group, benefited,” the filing reads.
The action by CFE puts pressure on the US authorities, since it suggests that these contracts were made with acts of corruption involved. Previously, on July 16, the CFE issued a statement stating that the government of the neighboring country is also investigating Whitewater Midstream and the contracts signed with the Mexican parastatal.
subscribe here to newsletter of EL PAÍS Mexico and receive all the informative keys of the news of this country
Exclusive content for subscribers
read without limits