The Popular Democratic Party’s Senate delegation warned on Monday that any supplier replacing New Fortress Energy (NFE) would have to pay NFE a toll of 50 cents per million British thermal units (MMBtu) to use its San Juan terminal, a cost they said would reach consumers through the Fuel Purchase Clause of their power bills. Alternate spokesperson Marially González Huertas said a preliminary estimate based on the contract shows a single substitute supplier ship could leave NFE between $1.8 million and $2 million in tolls, up to $37.5 million a year at maximum contracted volume; senator Josian Santiago Rivera noted the toll rises with inflation with a guaranteed minimum 2% annual increase.
The warning came days after federal judge Pedro A. Delgado Hernández ordered NFE to give alternative suppliers access to its facilities at PREPA’s (PREPA; AEE in Spanish) request amid gas shortages for the San Juan Central. Spokesperson Luis Javier Hernández Ortiz questioned the contract Governor Jenniffer González Colón’s administration signed with NFE on December 4, 2025, for seven years with promised annual savings of $54 million, saying it could reach $6.18 billion if all permitted gas is purchased.
Since October 13, NFE has only supplied one of the San Juan Central’s two main units (5 and 6), and since the Amur River ship’s gas ran out early Saturday both run on diesel. The kilowatt-hour cost has risen from 28.57 to 33.85 cents, and the Energy Bureau projected up to $82.5 million in additional charges for January-March 2027.
Senator Ada Álvarez Conde questioned Public-Private Partnerships Authority executive director and energy czar Josué Colón Ortiz’s oversight, since PREPA is represented by Genera PR, an NFE subsidiary. Hernández Ortiz recalled Senate Joint Resolution 80, presented in August 2025 to cancel the Ports Authority’s 20-year lease of piers A and B to NFEnergía through 2038, defeated by the PNP majority on August 21, 2025.
Former Senate president José Luis Dalmau Santiago said the PNP government under Ricardo Rosselló gave NFE pier control.