The national energy situation was considered to be slightly improved over much of the weekend. Saturday?s Diario Libre reported that two generators at EGE-Haina had entered into service, adding 200 MW to the local production. On Thursday, total electric generation was meeting less than 60% of demand, while blackouts of up to 20 hours were common all across the country. There is a possibility, however, that the AES-Andres facility, which provided 215 MW to the system, may be forced to shut down operations at midnight today, according to Hoy newspaper. The Diario Libre quotes Ramon Cruz, a spokesman for the Superintendence of Electricity, as saying that he had daily reports from AES-Andres, and that the facility has gas reserves to continue production for at least another week. Cruz said that on Thursday the AES-Andres claimed to have supplies for 16 days and then announced on Friday that it only had enough fuel for one week. Cruz also confirmed that the government was in discussions with Cogentrix and Smith-Enron. These two facilities, one in San Pedro de Macoris and the other in Puerto Plata, are capable of providing 480 MW to the system. The story in today?s Hoy says that AES executives are looking for the fastest way to bring a shipload of natural gas to their installation in Andres, Boca Chica. The Andres natural gas terminal has what is being called the largest natural gas storage tank in the world. Representatives for AES told Hoy reporters that while it was true there were 11,000 cubic meters of natural gas remaining in their tanks, there were technical reasons for not allowing supply to dip below certain limits. In the written statement, AES said the storage tanks are not designed for continual heating and cooling processes. The heating of the huge tanks occurs when they are empty and the cooling occurs when they are filled with liquid natural gas. In the same edition of Hoy that saw these statements published, AES-Andres also published a full-page ad to demonstrate their position that the government owes the company RD$1.163 billion. The government denies it owes the power supplier anything and has publicly made statements to this end.