Veracruz is not a backdrop
A venue is chosen by the hall or by the site. The Nuclear Summit & Expo LATAM (March 1 and 2, 2028) is in Veracruz for the latter. The state has the only nuclear power plant in Mexico, a network of ports on the Gulf, petrochemical complexes, and the national first place in electricity generation. That does not turn the forum into an announcement of a new reactor. It turns the city into a place where the industry already has something to see, not a stage that is rented.
The plant that is already operating
Laguna Verde is in Alto Lucero, on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. There are two boiling water reactors, BWR-5 from General Electric, operated by the Federal Electricity Commission. Unit 1 began commercial operation in 1990. Unit 2, in 1995. The combined net capacity is about 1,552 MWe. In 2023, the nuclear plant contributed about 4% of the country's electricity. In 2024, the plant delivered 11,978 GWh net, 16% of the clean energy produced by the CFE, and avoided around 8.6 million tons of CO₂.
The licenses are already looking towards the middle of the century. Unit 1 is authorized until July 2050. Unit 2, until April 2055. Extending the life is not a simple procedure. It involved inspection programs, testing, and monitoring of structures and components, information requirements to the National Commission of Nuclear Safety and Safeguards, and the maintenance that the CFE itself cites as the basis for renewal. The site also has dry storage for spent fuel. In the 2027 budget proposal, more than 400 million pesos appear for the second phase of that storage, in addition to resources for refueling platforms and cranes for the reactor building.
This is everyday nuclear: refueling, qualification, waste, license. It is not a decarbonization slide. And it is the asset that Veracruz has and the rest of the country does not.
The energy state, without mixing accounts
Veracruz presents itself, and the investment and industrial activity data support it, as the leading state in electricity generation, installed capacity, and associated gas production, and among the top in hydrocarbons. It has the Minatitlán refinery, the petrochemical complexes in the south —Coatzacoalcos, La Cangrejera, Morelos, Cosoleacaque— and three deep-water ports: Veracruz, Coatzacoalcos, and Tuxpan. The customs office at the port of Veracruz is one of the busiest in foreign trade in the country. In 2026, the state government spoke of a mixed investment plan of around 93 billion pesos to recover petrochemicals and fertilizers between 2026 and 2030, with actions in La Cangrejera and the Escolín project in Poza Rica.
It is advisable not to inflate the figure. When it is said that Veracruz "generates more than 30% of the country's energy," hydrocarbons, petrochemicals, and electricity are being summed up. It is not 30% of the kilowatts. The useful data for a nuclear forum is narrower and more solid: the state concentrates generation, pipelines, ports, and the only plant in the system. A valve supplier, a testing laboratory, or a nuclear law firm does not travel to Veracruz for the postcard. They travel because the trade is already on the map.
Why the venue matters
A congress can be held in any capital. A B2B meeting in the nuclear sector benefits if the location has already resolved, even partially, the issues that the program discusses. Veracruz has lived regulation, not just studied: a plant with two units, a regulator that has already extended licenses, spent fuel stored dry, an environmental laboratory with decades of monitoring, and a supply chain that knows the cost of not shutting down the unit. It also has the port through which heavy equipment enters and exits, and a processing industry —refining, petrochemicals, fertilizers— that is the natural customer for heat and firm electricity, even if it does not purchase a module today.
Distance helps the narrative and does not replace it. Alto Lucero is not the hotel. It is the same coastline. Anyone who wants to see a plant in operation does not have to cross the country. Those who do not want to are not obligated either: the Summit is not a guaranteed technical visit. It is a forum next to the only commercial nuclear site in Mexico. That proximity is self-explanatory. There is no need to embellish it.
What the venue does not announce
The Electric Sector Development Plan 2025-2039, published by the Ministry of Energy in October 2025, does not incorporate new nuclear capacity. The administration of Claudia Sheinbaum has stated that it does not seek to expand nuclear and prioritizes renewables and gas. Laguna Verde remains. A third reactor is not in the plan. Writing the opposite, or leaving it implied in the venue's brochure, would be selling a new build that the current electricity policy does not have.
That does not empty the event. It narrows it down, and makes it more credible. The commercial map of 2028 is not “who builds the first one in Alto Lucero.” It is who qualifies a component for the recharge, who maintains, who manages the spent fuel, who supplies the state's petrochemical industry, who explains the plant to someone living sixty kilometers away, and who brings an SMR or a service that still has no Mexican buyer but must sit down with those who already operate. A forum that promises the reactor that the PLADESE does not list spends the social license that the previous article described as a political cost. A forum that stands next to the existing plant, and talks about what that plant already demands, does.
Veracruz, then, is not a backdrop. It is the state of the only nuclear plant in the country, of the Gulf ports, and of a processing industry that cannot fit into a panel. The 2028 Summit takes place there because the site already has regulation, waste, license, and energy vocation. Not because it is going to announce the unit that the electrical plan left out. The difference is what separates a venue from a slogan.
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Sources
- World Nuclear Association. Nuclear Power in Mexico (update 2026). Capacity, licenses, participation in the matrix, and position on new build. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-g-n/mexico
- World Nuclear Association. Mexico – World Nuclear Outlook Report (October 2026). https://world-nuclear.org/our-association/publications/world-nuclear-outlook-report/mexico---world-nuclear-outlook-report
- Secretariat of Energy. Electric Sector Development Plan 2025-2039, Official Journal of the Federation, October 17, 2025.
- CFE. Laguna Verde Generation 2024: 11.978 GWh net, 16% of the Commission's clean energy. Statement and networks, April 2025.
- MVS News. Laguna Verde renewed its operating license due to the maintenance it receives: CFE (2025). Licenses until 2050 and 2055. https://mvsnoticias.com/nacional/2025/4/10/laguna-verde-renovo-su-licencia-de-operacion-debido-al-mantenimiento-que-recibe-cfe-687281.html
- World Nuclear News. Mexican dry storage facility nearing completion (2016). ISFSI at Laguna Verde. https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/mexican-dry-storage-facility-nearing-completion
- 2027 Federal Expenditure Budget Project. Items for spent fuel storage and modernization at Laguna Verde (local coverage, September 2026).
- El Financiero. Veracruz reaches 4.27 billion USD in investments and is a leader in electricity generation (September 22, 2026). https://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/estados/2026/09/22/veracruz-alcanza-4270-mdd-en-inversiones-y-es-lider-en-generacion-de-electricidad/
- Government of the State of Veracruz. Veracruz, a strategic hub for Mexico's energy development (September 8, 2026). https://www.veracruz.gob.mx/2026/09/08/345984/
- Nuclear Summit & Expo LATAM. Venue Veracruz, March 1 and 2, 2028. https://www.nuclearsummitexpolat.org/
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