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Paraguay ENERGY
Massive capital investments in hydroelectric projects along
Paraguay's river borders with Brazil and Argentina in the 1970s and
1980s were the most salient characteristic of the country's energy
sector and the economy at large. Although not a traditionally
significant part of the national economy, the energy sector became
an important contributor to the country's balance of payments as
Paraguay prepared to become the world's largest exporter of
electricity in the 1990s. The rapid growth in energy investment in
the 1970s rippled throughout the nation's economy, stimulating the
explosive growth of the eastern border region. The construction
industry derived the greatest benefits from the hydropower
projects, but the manufacturing, agricultural, and transportation
sectors also gained from the sudden growth in the east. Paraguay
was expected to surpass the United States in the mid-1990s as the
world's leader in per capita installed electricity.
Commercial energy represented only one-third of total energy
consumption, mostly imported petroleum for the transportation
sector. Paraguay was 100 percent dependent on foreign oil. Oil
exploration had taken place sporadically since the 1940s, but no
significant petroleum deposits had been found by 1988. Paraguay,
however, was the most unexplored country in South America in terms
of petroleum. Paraguay was increasingly experimenting with
renewable alternatives to fossil fuels, such as sugar-based
ethanol, an octane enhancer
(see Renewable Energy Resources
, this
ch.). Mining accounted for only 0.4 percent of GDP in 1986.
Data as of December 1988
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