New Minister of Energy and Mines Pelegrin Castillo Seman says there is serious energy vulnerability in the Dominican Republic. Castillo stated that the DR has a daily consumption of 140,000 barrels of petroleum that has to be imported, and of which 80% are by-products, as reported in Diario Libre. But it only has a week’s reserve of liquid fuels, 12 days worth of liquid petroleum gas (LPG) and 21 days of liquid natural gas. He accepted that the numbers do not take into account some private storage facilities, but stressed that reserves still are at a critical level in a region that is full of risks and volatilities. Castillo added that to make matters worse, the country’s energy storage infrastructure is concentrated along the south coast, between San Pedro de Macoris and Ocoa Bay, a hurricane-prone area.
He noted that this concentration is “against all recommendations by experts and policy guidelines drawn up over the last 30 years.”
The comments were made during a talk on natural gas held on Tuesday 24 June 2014 organized by the Commonwealth Round Table and the Dominican Electricity Industry Association.
During the meeting, Castillo proposed that the State should focus on energy security through an active land and sea exploration policy, in addition to continuing the energy matrix diversification process, pushing for the reconversion to natural gas for the existing generators and the installation of high efficiency coal-fired plants.