More promises

[NewsWhore]

The vice-president of the Dominican Corporation of State-owned Electricity Enterprises (CDEEE), Radhames Segura, said yesterday that he expects that the energy crisis affecting the country to be solved with the possible entry of AES-Andres into service next week. The AES-Andres plant has been off-line for "technical problems". The official told reporters from Diario Libre that there have been a lot of blackouts over the last few days due to many generators being out of service, not for lack of payment, but for technical problems in the units operated by the private sector. Segura reported that yesterday afternoon service was improved with the entry of the San Felipe generators (formerly Smith-Enron) with 175 megawatts and Haina IV with 60 megawatts. The CDEEE is trying to get the Mitsubishi unit with its 30 megawatts on-line. Segura also reported that the generators received US$20 million from the Ministry of Hacienda, and this month they will receive US$64 million from Hacienda as scheduled. Hacienda Minister Vicente Bengoa reported yesterday that he had complied with the payment for the electric sector according to plan. He mentioned that payments for US$76.3 million were made to the CDEEE in August, in September they paid US$75.6 million and his ministry has programmed payments for US$225 million for the electric sector for the last three months of the year. Segura pointed out that the outstanding debt with the generators is US$336 million, not counting the payments that the electricity distributors make with their own resources. He went on to explain that projected electricity invoices for October, November and December will be lower than invoices for August and September due to the changes in oil prices over the past two months, and this will be an opportunity to make payments on the debt that built up over these two months. At four in the afternoon yesterday the overall deficit in the electric system was 811 megawatts, with a demand for 2,034 megawatts and a supply of 1,205 megawatts.

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