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St. Lucia in discussions on potential geothermal development

St. Lucia in discussions on potential geothermal development View over Soufriere, St. Lucia, Caribbean (source: flickr/ donnierayjones, creative commons)
Alexander Richter 2 Feb 2014

The Caribbean island state of St. Lucia is exploring the possibility of geothermal development at the west coast of the Island in Soufriere. It plans to do some investigation and then exploratory drilling to quantify the potential allowing then more serious discussions with potential developers.

The government of the Caribbean island state of St. Lucia, is contemplating geothermal development at the Sulphur Springs, in the town of Soufriere on the west coast of the island.

ThinkGeoEnergy previously reported that the island is exploring development, but this seems to be now the first report on some more concrete steps.

“The government of St. Lucia is very aggressively moving towards developing this geothermal resource, for many reasons; we believe it gives us an excellent opportunity to bring down the price of electricity, secondly it gives us some buffer in volatility in world oil prices.

“And the more we can move our dependence away from oil and diesel, then the better for us,” said, Dr James Fletcher, the Minister for Sustainable Development, Energy, Science and Technology.

According to the news, the government has been holding discussions with a potential geothermal developer, but highlights that it first needs to do some background work to establish the potential for geothermal development.

A team from the World Bank was asked to do some investigative work based on studies that were done at Sulphur Springs a while ago. These investigations are to then lead to exploratory drilling, which is supposed to help quantify and determine development potential.

“We can then quantify that resource which will put us in a much better position when it is time to negotiate with the developer on how we value that resource and what sort of price we attach to the energy that we get out of that resource,” Fletcher said.”

Source: Cana News