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Posted: Tuesday 21 July, 2015 at 9:18 AM

Gov’t inherits US$49M debt to Petro Caribe

Energy Minister Hon. Ian Liburd
By: Terresa McCall, SKNVibes.com

    Gets interest waiver 

     

    BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – MINISTER with responsibility for Energy, the Hon. Ian Liburd reported that the Government had inherited a US$49M debt to Petro Caribe but has managed to successfully negotiate a waiver of the accrued interest.

    Minister Liburd spoke late last week at the Prime Minister’s press conference on the way forward for the energy sector and informed that the debt is owed through what was once the St. Kitts Electricity Department. 

    He said debt is also owed to Petro Caribe by the St. Kitts Electricity Company Ltd. (SKELEC).

    “Our new Administration has taken a comprehensive approach to facing the many challenges as it relates to energy. We also inherited a high debt! For example, SKELEC, or government rather under the Electricity Department, owes Petro Caribe some US$49M. SKELEC, since 2011, currently owes Petro Caribe some US$18M but, our approach to that, we have negotiated with Petro Caribe and we have gotten the interest on all the debt forgiven…”

    Minister Liburd said the forgiven interest amounts to about US$8M.

    Expressing that the Government is cognisant of the high cost of electricity, Minister Liburd indicated that the Administration would be exploring its renewable energy options as a means of reducing the cost of energy. 

    The options, he said, include geothermal energy for the island of St. Kitts.

    “But our comprehensive approach though to reducing the high cost of electricity is looking at our renewable energy resources. We have wind, we are blessed with sunshine and we are blessed with two volcanoes, one on Nevis and on St. Kitts. We know that in Nevis the development of geothermal has passed the expurgating drilling stage but we as a responsible Administration believe that it would be prudent to at least establish what is the potential of the geothermal resource in St. Kitts and how best we can develop that resource.

    “So we are looking at geothermal development, which is key to us, and moving forward to even establish geothermal on St. Kitts without retarding the progress of the geothermal development on Nevis…”

    The Energy Minister disclosed that by September the ball should have already begun rolling with feasibility testing taking place.

    “The projection is by September we should at least be able to do some feasible studies here on St. Kitts to establish the potential of that resource, because once we establish geothermal we move from the grid stability issues because we can, for example, develop 24 megawatts of geothermal which is the current demand here at peak period in St. Kitts and Nevis. And we would not necessarily need to have the grid stability issues in place because that would be the base load, because geothermal is a base load resource."
     
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