08-11-05
Mexico said that its energy initiative in
Central America comes in response to long-established plans and does not seek to
"check" the possible influence of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in the
region.
Mexican President Vicente Fox said in Mar del Plata, Argentina, at the 4th
Summit of the Americas that his government is pushing a Central American energy
integration plan that will need an investment of $ 7.5 bn and includes the
construction of a refinery.
At the summit, Fox and Chavez expounded diametrically opposed visions of the
FTAA, the US-backed project for free trade from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.
Chavez pronounced the pact, the negotiations toward which have been stalled for
nearly two years, "dead," while Fox argued for breathing fresh wind into its
sails.
In addition to moving forward on a bigger energy project called the
Puebla-Panama Plan, or PPP, the new spending outlined by Fox seeks to alleviate
the crisis in Central America over high international fuel prices.
Fox spokesman Ruben Aguilar said that Mexico made the decision to push the
energy program to "deepen the PPP and the framework of solidarity with our
Central American brothers," and not to counteract Chavez's possible "petroleum
influence" in the region.
"It has absolutely nothing to do with checking Chavez," Aguilar emphasized.
Mexico and Venezuela jointly supply 160,000 barrels of fuel per day to
Central America and the Caribbean in keeping with the 1980 San Jose Pact, which
grants easy payment terms but not preferential prices to oil purchasers.
The second phase of the PPP, a program that the Fox administration has been
promoting since 2001, envisions -- in addition to building a heavy crude
refinery - constructing a hydroelectric centre, a gas pipeline and plants to
convert liquefied natural gas into its usable gaseous form.
Fox said in Mar del Plata, after meeting with his Central American and
Colombian counterparts, that he had held conversations already with fuel
providers in Canada, the United States, Spain and Great Britain to see how to
achieve better energy prices for the Central Americans before the first quarter
of 2006.
It is estimated that the refinery alone, which will have the capacity to produce
250,000 barrels of fuel per day, will require an investment of $ 3.2 bn. To
launch the ambitious energy integration plan, an effort that will take at least
three years to complete, financing will be sought from various entities,
including the InterAmerican Development Bank.
Source: EFE