And we also asked the PM about a concrete solution for Belize's energy crisis, following his trip to Mexico, and his meeting with energy officials over there. He explained that the new president is committed to continuing to work with Belize. But while their newly installed government officials were just taking office, Briceno presented them with a plan that may help both countries in the medium to long term.
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"Concrete in the sense that, I had three occasions to speak with President Sheinbaum and every time that we meet, she assured me that she wants to continue to work closely with Belize, she sees Belize as a good partner and that the agreements that we had under President Lopez Obrador, she would continue to honor that and wants to build on that. So on the issue of energy, she will do everything for us to facilitate the selling of energy to Belize but we need to understand the reality, they also have a shortage, that is why we have, one of the ideas brought to the table, she facilitated me meeting the Secretary of Energy, and it was her first day in office so she was kinda laughing saying, I'm just getting into my office, I don't even know what we have. And the technical people of CFE, the CEO of CFE had to go to Acapulco because they had problems with a hurricane and flooding so he went. He accompanied the president. So the discussion was that there is a ship, I think they're saying that it is offshore in Santo Domingo, that produces 80MW of energy. They want to come to Belize, but the truth of the matter, they are looking at the Mexican market. We do not have need for 80MW but the idea is that they could anchor and use natural gas, not diesel, to be able to produce energy for a short period, maybe 2 or 3 years, while Mexico builds up their supply and also Belize builds up their supply and to be able to connect to Mexico. Many people aren't aware, and even they weren't aware, but now they are, man investors were not aware, and I tell them all the time, don't just look at Belize, look at Mexico, look at Central America. We're about to join into SICA, the transmission lines for Central America that we can then sell into these markets so the idea now is for them to come, we get what we need, and the rest we sell it into Mexico. Mexico needs it and so there is an interest. I just got a note from Minister Chebat, Ambassador Arnold just informed us that we need to send the names offer negotiating team, the technical team, which would be the Ministry of Energy, Ministry of Finance, BEL and PUC to be able to meet with their counterparts and we use Ambassador Arnold as their contact person since he's in Mexico City and hopefully soon we're going to have a meeting to see if it can work."
And as it relates to San Pedro's Gas Turbine, that's still not working and the transformer BEL is acquiring is currently stuck in Florida. But once that is here, they estimate that the turbine will be up and running within a month's time.
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"I had a meeting yesterday with CEO Mencias, the chairman, PUC, Ministry of Energy and Finance, I chaired the meeting to discuss this very issue. CEO Mencias assured us that once the GT power plant in San Pedro comes on board, San Pedro is going to be fine but that eases off about 17MW that we could deploy. So he thinks that we'll be just on the edge but we can't take that chance. We have worked so hard to increase, to attract, lodge more and more investments in tourism. We're the hottest growing destination, we have put in so much effort into the BPO, we just opened up a new ReadyCall center, could you imagine that the BPO industry is paying out pretty much $140 million, that's 10% of the total salaries that we're paying so a lot of young people are getting money so we cannot afford to not have energy so we are working diligently in addressing that matter."
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