The governments of Colombia and Ecuador announced an agreement Tuesday to study the feasibility of developing geothermal electric power in a remote border area dotted with three active volcanoes.
Colombia's mining and energy minister, Mauricio Cardenas, and Ecuador's electricity and renewable energy minister, Esteban Albornoz Vintimilla, said they would contribute equally to the $4 million study with the aim of jointly developing a gethermal power facility generating up to 150 MW.
The ministers said in a joint statement after meeting in the Colombian capital Bogota that the three volcanoes to be studied are Chiles, Tufino and Cerro Negro, located in the western Andes of the two nations' common border. The study will be complete by the end of 2013, they said.
The agreement was the latest step in the normalization of relations between the two countries, which almost went to war in March 2008 after Colombian aircraft and commandos briefly invaded Ecuador to kill a top-ranking rebel commander.
