Cuba hosts Central American energy cooperation summit

Brazil Sun (IANS) Thursday 20th December, 2007

Havana, Dec 20 (Prensa Latina) Twelve developing economies from Central America and the Caribbean will meet Friday in the Cuban city of Cienfuegos in a bid to work out a mechanism for energy cooperation.

The fourth Petrocaribe Summit will review the implementation of agreements and exchange opinions on efforts to consolidate it as a mechanism of energy cooperation and integration in the region.

Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Alejandro Gonzalez said Wednesday that Venezuela, Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Dominique, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Haiti, Jamaica and Nicaragua have confirmed participation in the summit.

The other four members of the grouping are Bahamas, Grenada, Saint Lucia and Surinam.

Gonzalez said the one-day meeting would conclude with the inauguration of the Camilo Cienfuegos oil refinery, which will process 65,000 barrels of oil a day during the first stage of operations.

He pointed out that Petrocaribe is a strategic mechanism for energy security rather than a commercial instrument to supply oil, seeking to mitigate the adverse effects of soaring oil prices on the region's oil importing economies.

Petrocaribe was established in 2005 to manage energy resources of the member countries in the region.