N.G.C. Receives $6M Loan from I.D.B. Invest

The National Gas Company began its operations back in May and has since been providing Belize with liquefied petroleum gas as the country’s sole importer.  The private/public partnership was met with strong objections from other importers whose license to haul LPG overland from Honduras to Belize had come to an end.  Notwithstanding the protest that was subsequently mounted, the N.G.C. has been able to attract foreign direct investment via a six million U.S. dollar loan from I.D.B. Invest, a member of the I.D.B. Group.  Those monies will be used for the construction, operation and maintenance of a marine terminal at the Port of Big Creek.  The terminal and storage facility will be able to store one point six million gallons of LPG products received directly from the U.S. Gulf Coast.  Daniel Gutierrez is the spokesperson for N.G.C.

Daniel Gutierrez

Daniel Gutierrez, Spokesperson, National Gas Company

“It is able to store around one point six million gallons of liquefied petroleum gas that is more than the monthly consumption for the country of Belize.  At the Port of Big Creek, when the LPG lands it is quality checked by an independent third party whose job it is around the world really to measure the quality of oil and gas products.  The Government of Belize is a part of the quality process and also part of the transparency that is brought to prices because the government knows exactly what the LPG is acquired for in the U.S. Gulf Coast and the entire process as it lands in Belize and then through to the Belizean consumer.  So as you correctly said, the operation started in May of this year and the sale to the Belizean public started thereafter.  The last bit of information coming out of NGC is the fact that now the hemisphere’s premier financing institution, the Inter-American Development Bank, has joined the. NGC’s financing mechanism. The Inter-American Development Bank has decided to come onboard because they saw the need that Belize has had historically for energy security.  In the past, LPG would be trucked overland from distant ports in Central America.  We all just saw what happened; I mean the roads in Guatemala, in Honduras, in El Salvador, Nicaragua were decimated because of a climate change related weather phenomenon.  That is not going to stop and unfortunately that is something that may be with us for some time.  We do not wish it but it is the case.  So to protect us against that was one of the reasons that NGC and the national marine terminal of its own was necessary for the country of Belize.  So that’s one reason.”