Mexico announced late on Monday the discovery of giant gas fields near the border with the United States.
"These huge deposits may completely change the energy situation in Mexico in the next few decades," Mexican Energy Minister Jordy Herrera told reporters.
The minister did not specify the potential reserves of the new gas deposits but said that the country would now have more than enough natural gas and it would be unwise to delay their development.
"Mexico may give up gas imports, create new jobs and clusters to operate 15 or 20 gas wells per hectare of land and build two or three petrochemical plants in the north of the country," he said.
The development of new gas fields could boost Mexico's GDP by about 1 percent and the country's natural gas reserves by four or five times as compared with the current reserves concentrated in the Burgos basin in the country's northwest, he said.
