South Korea Buys Share in Jamaican Electricity Company

Underlining South Korea's global energy interests, Seoul based Korea East-West Power Company Limited has negotiated a deal with the Jamaica government, which has given the green light to the decision by Marubeni Corporation to transfer 50 percent of its shares in the Jamaica Public Service Company to EWP.

Jamaica's Energy and Mining Minister Clive Mullings told reporters, "The company is wholly owned by the Government of South Korea, and ranks as the largest thermal power company in the Republic of Korea, owning and operating in excess of 9,000 megawatts of power generation facilities in the country. The main purpose being, to aggressively pursue the best strategy to significantly reduce the high prices local consumers have to pay for electricity.

The generation of electricity takes up 80 percent of the total cost to generate, transmit, and distribute electricity island-wide. Hence, the replacement of these plants by modern efficient units burning natural gas is the strategy that has been adopted by this Government and commands our primary focus," Bridgetown's CMC regional news service reported.

In promoting the arrangement Mullings added that Jamaica's only real solution to reducing electricity costs was through use of modern, efficient plants to generate electricity from cheaper energy sources, something that the indigenous economy was unable to afford at present.

By. Joao Peixe, Deputy Editor OilPrice.com