President Calderon to visit Manzanillo


The first thing visitors to Manzanillo notice--even from the air--is the
plume of smoke filling the skies with soot and pollution. No Mas!!

 With the conversion of the smoke-belching power plant finally finished, Mexico's President Felipe Calderon will be visiting Manzanillo to inaugurate the reopening the federal government project, soon to be running on LNG (liquefied natural gas).

Pres. Calderon will receive a tour of the updated power facility, including the operations control room, and the second port, to be used to bring in the LNG from Peru. (See "Koreans complete project 2 months early.")

According to Senator Martha Leticia Sosa Govea, the month of November heralds the arrival of the first gas from Peru. Sosa, a federal lawmaker, said that these works represent a major advance for the municipality of Manzanillo as well as the state of Colima. She stressed that this completed project means great strides have been made in the areas of sustainable economic development and the revival of tourism. Tourists and residents have long bemoaned the ugly sight of the combustoleo-burning power plant. (Combustoleo  is often described as the asphalt/tar mixture used to fill potholes.)

Sosa also stated that there will be a new access bridge to replace the old one in Tepalcates. Unfortunately, to build a new bridge and port, the lagoon had to be dredged, inviting complaints from environmentalists and fishermen, but the federal government had no intentions to delay its project.

As well as the new port, there will be storage tanks, a regasification facility, and pipelines to take the LNG to Guadalajara (then, from there, pipelines to everywhere in Mexico). There will also be a new rail system in place to service the new port.

The main purpose of the power plant is to sell off power to other states and countries. It is the third LNG plant in Mexico. Six percent of the revenues generated by the facility go into the state coffers; three percent go to the city of Manzanillo. The balance remains with the federal government.

The conversion will double the power output, using only a third of the workforce.

The exact date that Calderon will arrive in Manzanillo is being kept a secret due to security reasons.