Dominican Republic: Looks to Pemex for oil and gas exploration help
Dominicans look to Pemex for help
The Dominican Republic has asked Mexico for help with efforts to explore for oil and gas in its territory, the Caribbean nation’s economy minister said.
Temistocles Montas said his country is totally dependent on foreign suppliers of gas and oil and therefore the search for these resources is an urgent policy matter.
“The idea is to be able to reach agreements with the Mexican authorities,” said Montas, who did not rule out the involvement of state-owned Pemex, reported the Latin American Herald.
“We would be interested in Pemex, or any other Mexican company, reaching agreement with our country” on a programme to explore for oil and gas, he added.
Attempts to attract private, multinational companies to take part in oil exploration in the Dominican Republic “have not panned out, so there’s no other alternative than to seek the help (of foreign governments),” Montas said.
He pointed to Cuba as an example, saying that Caribbean country received aid from Mexico for oil exploration and has managed to reduce its dependence on foreign energy sources in recent years.
Last year, the Dominican Republic was forced to import $4.5 billion worth of oil and gas, according to Montas, who said that expenditure caused the public-sector deficit to soar to 9.7% of gross domestic product.
A new regulation on renewable energy in the Dominican Republic has already sparked the interest of Spanish and German companies, Montas said.
The minister said he was optimistic about the Dominican economy despite the global financial crisis and predicted that GDP will end the year up by as much as 2.5% thanks to the start of the US economic recovery in the third quarter.