AFP, San Jos :
Irreconcilable differences over a rejected feasibility study scuppered a $1.3 billion project with China to build an oil refinery, Costa Rica’s state-run petroleum distribution group RECOPE said Wednesday.
“The best option in the public interest” was to “terminate the participation in SORESCO,” a joint venture for the project, RECOPE’s president, Sara Salazar, told a news conference.
Costa Rica’s deputy foreign minister, Alejandro Solano, said however at the same news conference that he did not believe Chinese-Costa Rican relations would be affected.
RECOPE, which has a monopoly on importing and distributing fuel in Costa Rica, announced last week that it had canceled the refinery project with the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).
The SORESCO venture was created seven years ago with the aim of building a new refinery on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast with a capacity to handle 60,000 barrels of oil a day.
But in 2013 Costa Rica’s public auditing authority rejected a feasibility study carried out by a CNPC subsidiary, HQCEC, saying it violated a contract clause requiring the study to be conducted by an independent contractor.
Irreconcilable differences over a rejected feasibility study scuppered a $1.3 billion project with China to build an oil refinery, Costa Rica’s state-run petroleum distribution group RECOPE said Wednesday.
“The best option in the public interest” was to “terminate the participation in SORESCO,” a joint venture for the project, RECOPE’s president, Sara Salazar, told a news conference.
Costa Rica’s deputy foreign minister, Alejandro Solano, said however at the same news conference that he did not believe Chinese-Costa Rican relations would be affected.
RECOPE, which has a monopoly on importing and distributing fuel in Costa Rica, announced last week that it had canceled the refinery project with the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).
The SORESCO venture was created seven years ago with the aim of building a new refinery on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast with a capacity to handle 60,000 barrels of oil a day.
But in 2013 Costa Rica’s public auditing authority rejected a feasibility study carried out by a CNPC subsidiary, HQCEC, saying it violated a contract clause requiring the study to be conducted by an independent contractor.
