In the wake of the energy crisis the country is going through, energy imported from Colombia is paid 35 percent more, Minister of Energy and Mining Andrea Arrobo revealed on December 4 before the Supervisory Commission of the National Energy Commission of the Assembly.

The import of this energy source was managed directly by the former President of the Republic, Guillermo Lasso, at the end of October last year, when he traveled to Bogotá for a meeting with his colleague Gustavo Petro, but there was no mention of costs on that occasion. “Colombia is supporting us by guaranteeing that it will export 10 gigawatt hours a day,” Lasso announced last October 28, a day after the blackouts began in Ecuador. This delivery represents 450 MW.

Former Minister of Energy: Demand grew, supply did not keep up, it could not, the state ran out of money

Now Minister Arrobo has assured that this cost overrun has never been seen under normal conditions, nor has it happened in Colombia’s history of energy imports, and now the costs that companies have to bear are too high. “We’re talking about $220 million, cumulatively for the entire year,” Arrobo told lawmakers.

He stated that together with the Deputy Minister of Electricity, Ramiro Díaz, he made an estimate and that the reconstruction of the existing thermal park cost between 150 and 200 million dollars, but with 220 million dollars that went out of the country to Colombia, the crisis could energy in a different way, without considering external costs.

Meanwhile, former Energy Minister Fernando Santos Alvite admitted on December 5th to human error in calculating the cost of these imports. “Maybe I believed that Colombia would sell us a large amount of energy at a good price. “I miscalculated, it’s a human error,” said the former minister, but he nevertheless asserted: “But every current minister will also be a prey to this statist system.”

Power shortages will be suspended in Ecuador for Christmas and New Year

Santos Alvite reminded that Colombia’s obligation to sell energy to Ecuador is only until December because that country is also going through an energy crisis due to low water levels.