EDC eyeing geothermal opportunities in Mexico
Avenida de la Reforma, Mexico City, Mexico (source: flickr/ Enrique Dans, creative commons)
Alexander Richter
13 Haz 2016
EDC is eyeing geothermal investment in development projects in Mexico and is optimistic on its other geothermal activities in Chile and Peru.
Philippine-headquartered Energy Development Corp., is looking at geothermal business opportunities in Mexico, as reported by local media in the Philippines.
“In Mexico, we’re not doing anything yet – but we’re studying. Mexico’s energy sector is privatizing, deregulating so we want to take a look, but no concrete plans today yet,” EDC president Ricky Tantoco said. Tantoco said while low oil prices had pushed the company to put on hold its overseas geothermal projects, EDC was optimistic it would benefit from the push for cleaner technologies.
“But you know what’s happening in Latin America, particularly in Chile, there are recently two large coal-fired power plants that were cancelled by the government. So I think the time is right for geothermal to happen there. Probably in the next one to two years,” he said.
Tantoco said there were “a major invitation from other countries in the region to invest in RE after COP21, so we are looking at it.”
Tantoco earlier said EDC remained committed to grow its geothermal overseas business, which based on key prospects in Chile and Peru, had an estimated geothermal potential of at least 800 megawatts. EDC also completed the geotechnical survey of the Graho Nyabu in Indonesia, where there was an assessed potential of more than 200 MW.
“In Chile, the recent downtrend in commodity prices has caused the company to re-evaluate the project’s economics and work plan,” Tantoco said.
“The implementation of the three-well drilling program for the Mariposa project was deferred in order to continue the pursuance of greater focus, including conducting further environmental and technical studies of the steam field, power plant and transmission line interconnection,” he said.
EDC decided to postpone its two to three well drilling campaign originally set for October last year for the Mariposa project amid the decline in world prices.
EDC said it would continue to pursue development activities at the Mariposa project with greater focus, including conducting further environmental and technical studies for the steamfield, power plant and transmission line interconnection.
The company earlier said it would prioritize investing in technical studies for the front-end engineering design for the steam field, power plant and for the transmission line connection and proceed with the environmental impact assessment to advance the development of Mariposa project.
Source: The Standard
