DR wants TT’s natural gas to meet its energy needs

The Dominican Republic is working towards increasing the amount of natural gas imported from Trinidad and Tobago from the current figure of 30 million Btu to approximately 60 million Btu within the next few years. So said Julian Nebreda, President of AES Andres, the subsidiary of the US AES company which owns the 400 megawatt liquified natural gas plant in the Dominican Republic. AES currently has investments in the energy sector in countries around the world, with 40 percent of its investments being in Latin America. AES Andres currently buys all of its LNG from British Petroleum and is seeking to establish its own liquefied train later this year. “We will be importing around 30 million Btu of LNG a year, which will be around US $190 million per year at 60 per Btu,” Nebreda said.

The LNG which is brought into the plant is used to provide energy to service approximately one third of the electricity needs of the Dominican Republic. AES Andres itself caters half of the energy needs of the population, Nebreda noted. He explained further that the plant was an efficient source of energy for the country’s cement companies and as a result, the company was looking at doubling the amount of energy supplied by the LNG tank within the next five years. At present the steel tank has a holding capacity of 160,000 cubic feet. The DR, he explained, has one of two LNG processing terminals in the Caribbean, the second being located in Puerto Rico. He said, “we believe that the prospects of natural gas for the DR are huge, especially in terms of the environmental characteristics of natural gas which is the cleanest gas.

“We built this plant not only to burn energy but also to sell to third parties and generate business for our industry,” he said, adding, “we could easily double the amount of LNG imported from TT from the current 30,000,000 Btu to 60,000,000 Btu. We think there is a huge opportunity for this.” He noted that the plant was now able to sustain 1,000 megawatts of generation and could easily double this amount. AES Andres has also left room at the plant for the construction of a second LNG tank. “This will change the energy market of the DR,” Nebreda said of the potential development. The company is now looking at transporting natural gas to the rest of DR. This, he said which “will make it competitive with Liquid Propane Gas and change the way the market works.”