By NATARIO McKENZIE
Tribune Business Reporter
nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net
Atlantis will be “redirecting” its focus to renewable energy generation systems now that it has concluded its $1.9 billion debt refinancing, its top executive saying last week’s island-wide power blackout could not have happened at a worse time.
Brookfield Hospitality’s president and managing director, George Markantonis, told Tribune Business that BEC’s woes occurred just when Atlantis’s occupancy levels were in the mid-90 per cent range due to the US Independence Day holiday weekend.
“We lost power in most of our buildings. We don’t know exactly what happened, but because of the outage it blew some of our back-up systems, so it took us longer than usual to get back to normal. Our teams took all night. I wish that it had happened in September when we are running like 35 per cent, and not 98 per cent,” said Mr Markantonis.
“We were fortunate we were not affected in the 1,200 room Royal Towers at all. We were negatively affected in the Beach Tower, half of the Coral Tower and then half of the Cove, which was unfortunate.”
Mr Markantonis added that with the resort’s energy bill ranging between $60-$70 million per year, its owner, Brookfield Asset Management, was actively exploring alternative energy solutions to reduce this cost and boost profits. Thursday night’s events will have given added impetus to this effort, if more were needed.
“We were actually waiting to get through the refinancing and establishing Brookfield Hospitality as operator. We were also waiting for the Government’s [energy reforms]. We will now be redirecting some of our focus on what we do with energy going forward. It’s a problem that affects the whole of the Bahamas,” said Mr Markantonis.
“We are in dialogue with government. We haven’t talked about this lately because it wasn’t on the front burner, and we will continue to be in dialogue. We have some ideas but nothing that is solid right now. We will continue to have those conversations.”
Brookfield itself has major investments and interests in renewable energy. And Prime Minister Perry Christie and his ministers last year disclosed that the threat of Atlantis, BEC’s most reliable and highest-paying customer, going all or partially off-grid had prompted the Government to launch the process to reform the Corporation via a split and part-privatisation.
The Government, though, appears to be dragging its feet on naming the preferred bidder(s) and determining the way forward. Tribune Business sources suggested it was now leaning to giving Carolina-based Power Secure a management contract, and would not proceed with the partial privatisation of BEC’s generation systems.
BEC’s executive chairman, Leslie Miller, in the past has praised Atlantis as being BEC’s “number one customer”, estimating that the resort, which employees roughly 8,000 persons, paid it on average $5 million a month for electricity.
“Without Atlantis, BEC would be in serious trouble,” Mr Miller said. “Atlantis pays us, on average $5 million a month. The lovely thing is they call us and say the cheque is ready, unlike the rest who you have to break down the doors and threaten to turn them off. Atlantis is our number one customer and we thank them for it.”
Comments
proudloudandfnm 9 years, 8 months ago
HOW will BEC handle the load from Atlantis and Bahamar when they're both online?
Sickened 9 years, 8 months ago
They won't; they can't.
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