Santo Domingo. –The group AES Dominicana develops a business model from the country’s current natural gas infrastructure, as well as the reception and regasification terminal, the 160,000 cubic meter storage tank, the 34 km gas pipeline towards Los Mina and the liquefied natural gas distribution terminal (GNL), that form part of the AES Andres energy complex.

Natural gas has become the best alternative to diversify the national energetic matrix, due to its high efficiency, safety, environmental advantages and competitive price.

In keeping with its long term strategy the group hosted the first seminar on Standards and Norms for the Technical handling of the fuel, whose content is closely related to the safety, which is AES Corporation’s first corporative value and its branches worldwide.

The seminar aims to present the procedures and standards for the handling of natural gas, its different uses because it’s already marketed in the country, in the liquid (LNG) as well as in the compressed (CNG) state.

Tropigas, Nat-Gas (Propagas), SGN (Grupo Lama), Platergas and Línea Clave International sponsored activity, companies that distribute natural gas to industrial clients, commercial and hotels in the local market.

Speaking in the Seminar, AES Dominicana president Marco De la the Rosa said the development of the natural gas market in Dominican Republic, “is the result of a master plan formed between AES Dominicana and local strategic partners.”

He said the expansion plans include the opening of more than 40 stations for vehicles in the next 3 years and the installation of stations in strategic places for smaller customers. He also announced a plan to provide natural gas to auto-generation systems and co-generation processes for industries.

De la Rosa affirmed that the use of the fuel in the country will contribute by reducing 300,000 tons of CO2 emissions annually.

Currency savings for the country

“It’s an opportunity for the country to save funds of around US$1.1 billion annually, or approximately 2.5% of the GDP, with a lower fuel imports value and a fall in  subsidies allotted to the other fuels derived from petroleum,” AES Dominicana said.

Natural gas based electricity generation is currently around 26% of all the energy channeled to the National Electric Interconnected System (SENI), with projections to increase to 33% in next the two years, resulting from new investments by the sector’s different companies, to change their fuel matrix.

Saving for customers

The use of natural gas saves around 50% for industries which have converted their productive processes to that technology, while motorists have reduced their costs by more than 1,000 pesos per day.

Other uses

After the liquefied natural gas distribution terminal’s inaugural by the AES Dominicana group in February, five companies operating in the LNG transport and distribution segment (downstream) are currently projecting sales of 1.5 Tera Btu (TBtu), a internationally used measure of units in the case of natural gas.