Fuel prices will not be affected

PANAMA. A change in government will not affect the prices of hydrocarbons in Panama, because the country is paying the international prices and the parity formula only counts for a tiny percentage of the cost, said the secretary of the Hydrocarbons Committee of the Panama American Chamber of Commerce, Francisco De Ycaza.

Talking about the use of environmentally friendly sources of energy De Ycaza said: “The previous government had plans for reducing the use of hydrocarbons to generate electricity and according to the programs revealed by the state more green energy is going to be produced in the next four years using renewable sources. Regarding the use of fuel for vehicles it will continue to increase, mainly because there are not other viable alternatives. However, there are plans to introducing by 2012 alternative fuels such as bio-diesel and ethanol. Eventually that will have a negative effect on consumption of hydrocarbons, but they will continue to be important as the other alternatives will not be able to replace them altogether,” said De Icaza.

“I understand that the current government and the Ricardo Martinelli’s administration have plans to replace hydrocarbons with alternative sources of energy. The main problem of the hydrocarbons is that there are expensive, but also that there prices are unpredictable. The gradual substitution of them with other sources of energy, such as coal, which although it is not very clean at least the prices are more stable,” said De Ycaza.

“It appears that the main objective of the new government will be to diminish the hydrocarbons’ dependency, like many other countries such as the United States are doing, because the Russian and Middle East hydrocarbons cartels are controlling the prices to the detriment of their clients,” said De Ycaza.

The entrepreneur indicated that for many years there have been plans to convert Panama into the energy hub of the Americas, but the fact that new refineries are going to be created eventually, does not mean lower fuel prices.

He concluded that the most feasible project at the moment is the one that was proposed by Qatar Occidental in the Chiriqui province. Although, nothing has been said recently it is still alive are will re-energize the area. However, one important factor against the refineries are the damages to the environment.