Caribbean & Central America - October 2018

PANAMA | First LNG plant in Central America. The Panamanian government led by President Juan Carlos Varela and energy company AES have inaugurated Central America’s first electricity generation plant based on natural gas. President Varela told reporters that this positioned Panama as “a liquefied natural gas [LNG] distribution hub in the region”. Located in Colón city, the capital of the eponymous province, the plant cost US$1.15bn to construct and has a capacity of 381MW. President Varela highlighted that AES Panama is currently a mixed capital company (of which the Panamanian state has 50.5% and the rest is owned by a subsidiary of the US company AES), noting that “this work is another example of what can be achieved when we join the efforts of government and private enterprise”. President Varela also highlighted that more than 2,500 direct and indirect jobs were created with the construction phase, while the production period is expected to create 200 direct jobs. The AES Colón Project consists of two stages, of which the LNG plant is the first. The second includes the construction of an LNG storage tank which is currently 87% complete and expected to begin operations in 2019. Varela describes the plant as “one of the most important works carried out in the Panamanian energy sector, not only because of the magnitude of the investment, but also…the entry into the market of a new source of safe and reliable energy”.

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