Eastern
Caribbean gas pipeline gets
green light
Trinidad
Guardian /Keith Matthews
Trevor Boopsingh chairman of the Eastern Caribbean
Gas Pipeline Company, at his office in Tatil
Building, Maraval Road, Port-of-Spain, last
week.
By Asha Javeed
Trinidad Guardian
Port
Spain
Petroleumworldtt.com
05 20 07
By
late 2009, Barbados can expect to have natural
gas from T&T.
That’s the prediction of Trevor Boopsingh,
chairman of the Eastern Caribbean Gas Pipeline
Company (ECGPC), who’s company was given
the nod of approval by the Barbadian Government
to supply the country with natural gas via its
ambitious pipeline project.
The US$550 million,176-mile pipeline from Cove
Point, Tobago to Barbados should transport about
40 million cubic feet of gas a day which should
benefit some 13,000 households in the first five
years of the project.
The approval was granted on April 26 after being
considered by the Barbadian Government for almost
two years.
Boopsingh
said while the company had received just a “simple” letter
from the Barbadian Minister of Energy Elizabeth
Thompson, there were
still commercial negotiations to be conducted.
“If we are able to negotiate a more favourable
supply for gas than we have currently been buying
it at, that just as we have done with petroleum
prices, the lower prices will be passed on to the
consumer and this will be reflected in the electricity
bill because the fuel rate of the electricity bill
will decrease,” she told the Barbadian Parliament,
as reported in the Barbados Nation.
She had said that cheaper options such as Gas
Transport Modules and Voltrans had been considered
but were turned down because they were not commercially
viable. The Barbados Opposition had contended that
compressed natural gas (CNG) via barges would be
a cheaper option.
As for the availability of gas, Thompson told
her Parliament that Prime Minister Patrick Manning
had committed himself to supplying the volume Barbados
required.
Approval
Boopsingh said the letter represented a green
light as the company can now look at securing approval
from the governments of the French islands of Martinique
and Guadeloupe and St Lucia, the other destinations
for the pipeline.
“The project is now poised to become the
most significant economic co-operation venture
in the history of the Caribbean,” one commentator
noted. He added that the “final major hurdle
will be the commercial negotiations with the prospective
consumers, who, given the experience with fuel
prices over the last year, should be willing to
reach mutually acceptable terms and conditions.”
Boopsingh
said negotiations with the other islands had
run parallel to the Barbadian lobbying but
Barbados’s acceptance would be an incentive
for the other islands to join the project.
As
Thompson pointed out to her Parliament, “The
pipeline is being built at their expense not at
the expense of the Government of Barbados. We are
buying gas. They are building a pipeline for the
transmission of this gas.”
“Barbados became the first decision making
point and we’ve been concentrating our efforts
to ensure them that it was sensible. Barbados Light
and Power prefers the pipeline but it has cost
us about two years while the Government evaluated
the options,” said Boopsingh.
The
pipeline—first mooted in 2002 and described
as a pipedream—was conceived to serve seven
Caribbean islands: Barbados, Grenada, St Vincent,
St Lucia, Martinique, Guadeloupe and Dominica all
stressed by high fuel prices. These were expected
to generate a total demand of natural gas originally
estimated at 100-140 million metric cubic feet
per day (mmcfpd).
But a feasibility study conducted by Doris Inc,
a Houston-based joint venture involving industry
leaders Saipem and Doris Engineering of France
found that volcanic activity in Grenada and St
Vincent posed a risk to the project and the demand
was too small to justify the cost of running a
separate line.
Outlining the benefits of the pipeline, Boopsingh
explained that once the countries are connected,
there would be no limitation on gas. He said the
pipeline, which will be laid at a depth of about
3000 feet, would not be affected by ships or hurricanes.
“A pipeline is a fairly simple thing to
operate. You have no moving parts, the biggest
risk is in the construction and it never is a problem
except cost overruns or weather,” he told
the Business Guardian at the ECGP offices at Tatil
Building, Maraval Road, last week.
The project, principally a private sector venture,
includes stakeholders Guardian Holdings Ltd and
the Unit Trust Corporation (UTC) with the National
Gas Company (NGC) having a ten per cent stake.
“Other people are interested right now.
They were all waiting on Barbados because you don’t
have a project unless the line runs to Barbados.
So the bottom line is that now you have Barbados
you have a lot of work,” stressed Boopsingh.
Trinidad
Guardian
Thursday 24th May, 2007
Copyright ©2007
Trinidad Guardian. All Rights Reserved.
