Washington, DC - The Department of State’s Bureau of Energy Resources, in partnership with the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center and Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, held a roundtable on Central American natural gas development in Washington D.C. on April 16.

Acting Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs John McCarrick and David Goldwyn, Chair of the Atlantic Council’s Energy Advisory Group and Senior Fellow at the Latin America Center, co-chaired a discussion with energy ministers and senior-level officials from Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Panama about ways to develop commercial natural gas power projects in the Central America region and the benefits of increased natural gas trade, including LNG, for regional economic development and competitiveness.

Acting Special Envoy McCarrick and Rosanety Barrios Beltran, Head of Industrial Transformation Policy of Mexico’s Energy Secretariat, also announced a new partnership in which the U.S. and Mexican governments will collaborate with countries in Central America to strengthen policy, regulatory, and investment frameworks for natural gas. The first of three workshops is scheduled to take place in Mexico City in May.

Senior-level participants from Central America also included: Guatemalan Minister of Energy and Mines Luis Chang, Honduran Minister of Energy Roberto Ordonez, Panamanian Secretary of Energy Victor Urrutia, CEO of the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) and ICE Group Carlos Obregon, El Salvadoran National Energy Council Executive Secretary Luis Reyes, Belizean Ambassador to the United States Daniel Gutierez, and Nicaraguan Electricity Market Director and System Operator Rodolfo Lopez.

Representatives from the Departments of Commerce and Energy, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the Export-Import Bank, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, USAID, the Inter-American Development Bank, and U.S. energy companies also participated.