The V.I. Water and Power Authority’s governing board revoked a liquid petroleum gas supply contract with the Puerto Rico-based Empire Gas Company during an emergency meeting Friday afternoon and authorized the utility’s Chief Executive Officer, Karl Knight, to contract a short-term supplier while issuing yet another request for proposals for a long-term LPG supplier.
The decisions came after board members spent hours in executive session Friday and less than a month after the board narrowly approved the Empire deal in a 3-2 vote despite reservations from board Chair Maurice Muia, who asked that the vote be delayed while the board gathered more information. On July 30, At-Large Sen. Angel Bolques Jr. wrote to WAPA leadership “to encourage transparency, due diligence, and fair adherence to WAPA’s procurement standards in evaluating the proposed LPG … supply contract” with Empire.
“The letter was a response to multiple concerns directly expressed and relayed to me by several constituents and stakeholders,” he wrote in a statement. “My role, as a legislator, is to ensure that public processes uphold integrity and that community voices are heard.”
Knight appeared before the V.I. Public Services Commission Tuesday to defend Empire’s selection. The utility received four responses to a solicitation they issued in April, but the process was ultimately scrapped because the pricing proposals “did not leave us any place differently than we had been, nor had the payment terms improved,” Knight said during that meeting.
“We terminated that process, ended it, and we started out — in the interest of public exigency — direct engagement with potential providers, starting with the respondents, trying to see if there was assumptions that were factored into their proposals or other things — risk they were trying to mitigate — but to see if we could get to a better price point, better payment terms, or better value from their proposals.”
It’s not yet clear whether the utility will extend its existing agreement with Vitol for the next three months or find a different supplier. After Friday’s votes, Muia told the Source that fuel represents both the biggest cost and the biggest risk to WAPA.
“But most importantly, it’s our largest opportunity to turn the authority around,” he said. “And today, I truly believe we made a decision as a board to drive that in the right direction.”
