During a conference at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra (PUCMM), Octavio Lopez, director of Mining in the DR, speculated that there could be natural gas in Dominican territory. He said that a team of experts from the Department of Geodynamics at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid had found indications of a possible natural gas deposit. He said the research does not establish whether there was sufficient natural gas to make it commercially exploitable.
In a press release, Lopez stated that more research needed to be done in the south and eastern coasts to assess the significance of the discovery.