THE DR DESK
An import-dependent energy economy that earns its dollars from tourism, gold, free-zone manufacturing, and agro exports.
Adopt this desk → track 9 markets live, in dollars, on your own deskPower & fuel imports
- The DR imports essentially all of its petroleum — the national border-price math above is the whole story.
- Generation costs pass into tariffs and outage economics; businesses running backup generation buy the diesel print directly.
Tourism & aviation
- Tourism is the top services earner; airlift into Punta Cana and Santo Domingo prices off distillate (jet proxy).
- Resort operating costs ride fuel and food imports together.
Agro exports — the revenue side
- Sugar and coffee are export earners: a RISE in these boards pays the DR — the sign flips versus the import bill.
- The ethanol-cane switch links sugar to oil directly; both crops carry farm-fuel costs on the way up.
Gold — the anchor export
- Pueblo Viejo is among the world's largest gold operations, and gold is a leading goods export.
- In the blockade spike, gold sold off with risk assets (the crisis print shows it) — export revenue is not a straight oil hedge.
The peso — every import lands through it
- USD/DOP is the pass-through valve: fuel, food, and materials are dollar-priced, so a weaker peso raises every landed cost even when the boards sit still.
- Tourism and remittances earn the dollars that hold it — the same flows the fuel bill spends.
Free zones & textiles
- Zona franca apparel manufacturing buys cotton and sells into the US; input costs and US demand both matter.
Construction
- Tourism build-out and housing carry imported steel, lumber, and wire — landed costs stack freight on top of these boards.
Everything here lands with ocean freight on top: the boards are the base, the surcharge rides diesel.
First-order border-price exposure: the country's net oil position re-priced at the Brent move, nothing else. It is not a realized import bill or fiscal forecast — it excludes term-contract lags, benchmark differentials (Dubai/Oman, WTI), hedging, product mix, and subsidies. An exact answer to one defined question. "War spike" = each board's peak response inside Feb 27 – Mar 31, 2026 (Brent +63%), from our archived daily closes — what happened during those dates, not a causal claim. Boards are futures/hub basis; landed local prices add freight, taxes, and margin.