US Energy Dept. official visits AES Dominicana project

Santo Domingo.- US InternationalEnergy Affairs Dept. director Gary Ward on Monday visited the construction siteof the Dominican Power Partners combined cycle power plant, owned by AESDominicana, where its executives, headed by its president Edwin De los Santos, discussedthe benefits on sustainability and global efficiency.

“AES Dominicana tookadvantage of the visit to share AES´ local and regional strategy on natural gas,and the prospect that it might have on Dominican Republic both in terms ofoptionality in fuels supply for more sustainable energy systems and onindustrial competitiveness,” the power company said in a statement.

De Los Santos conveyedto Ward the importance for local energy development that t the US opens naturalgas exports commercially, “given that there are projects such as the start ofconstruction of the pipeline from AES Andres to San Pedro de Macoris that allowconversion to natural gas supply up to 1,000 megawatts from natural gas in theeast and which would bring higher profits to the productive sectors and forconsumers in general for access to an alternate fuel.”

Another project explainedto the US official is AES Dominicana´s recent launch of transport and storage operationsfor the Caribbean, Central and South America, headed by George Nemeth, who saidwork has begun to reconfigure the current terminal atr AES Andres to allow offloadingto smaller tankers from 7,000m3 to 60,000m3, “and thus convert Dominican Republicinto the Greater Caribbean’s logistics center taking advantage of its excellentgeographical location.”

Combined cycle

Construction project directorAbraham Garrido showed Ward the features of the construction of the DPP combinedcycle power plant which began last October, when president Danilo Medina and AESCorp. CEO Andres Gluski headed groundbreaking.