Despite record prices, Costa Rica’s oil consumption continues to reach record levels, with 18.4 million barrels of fuel consumed in 2007. That represents a 7% increase over 2006 consumption, which was itself a record.
The biggest jump in consumption came from the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), whose consumption of diesel fuel jumped 23.7%.
The jump came thanks to an unusually dry summer that caused the country’s hydropower-dependent power grid to falter and forced ICE to ramp up its consumption of hydrocarbon-generated electricity.
ICE consumed a total of almost 1.3 million barrels of diesel fuel, about a fifth of the country’s total consumption.
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