ROSEAU, Dominica, Jul 9, CMC – The Dominica government says it is holding talks with a group of French companies on the second phase of the geothermal energy project.

Energy Minister Ian Douglas said that the discussions with the French Investment Consortium (FIC) are proceedings well and “they are to form a joint venture company with the government of Dominica for the continued development of the geothermal energy project.

“We have just finished what is called the exploratory phase where we have explored the source of the power and now we are actually going into issues pertaining to generating of the power and that’s where we have to interface with DOMLEC (Dominica Electricity Company) because DOMLEC is our only power distributor,” he said.

He said in addition, DOMLEC owns the grid and that the government and the FIC are in negotiations with the electricity company for it to purchase power from the consortium.

“We have to form a local company to actually start the generating phase…so all in all we believe we are making good progress,” Douglas said.

The Dominica government has spent in excess of EC$33 million (One EC dollar = US$0.37 cents) in developing the first phase of the geothermal industry with the Roosevelt Skerrit administration indicating that the geothermal programme will help the island address a number of issues in the future including a reduction in the energy costs.

Douglas, speaking on the state-owned DBS radio Thursday, said that legislation regarding the development of the geothermal project will be taken to parliament later this year.

“Some of these issues have to be reflected in the geothermal development bill, so we had delayed the bill until all of the parties were very satisfied …now that has in fact been finalised we will in fact be able to take the bill through the parliament for passage hopefully after the budget.”

He said discussions are also ongoing with the World Bank, the French government, regarding funding for the project.

“The negotiations are taking place at various levels,” he said, dismissing media reports that the project was shutting down as equipment was being transported out of the country.

He said the contractors had requested Dominica safe guard the equipment while they bid on other projects in the region and was now moving to Montserrat.

CMC/ad/ir/2015