The Jamaican port has reported that the Liquefied Natural Gas supply destined for a power plant located at Bogue, Montego Bay has been scheduled to be offloaded in Portland Bight area and then ferried to the north coast due to cyclone warning.
The Jamaican port authority has leased seven acres of land in Montego Bay to the Jamaica Public Service Company for the construction of a terminal and pipeline for the delivery of LNG to the Bogue power plant. The New Fortress Energy which is JPS’ gas supply partner is responsible for delivery of LNG to the power plant.
PAJ Vice-President for Business Development Edmond Marsh explained that “LNG for the Bogue plant would be shipped from the United States via charter vessel Golar Arctic, which arrived in Jamaica in August, was taken to Kingston for registration and is now anchored in the Portland Bight area”. He reported that to tackle this situation a feeder vessel Coral Anthelia has been commissioned to transport the LNG from Golar Arctic to Montego Bay on a weekly basis.
The Coral Anthelia was reported to arrive in Montego Bay on September 30 and scheduled to conduct a dry run, without any cargo. The feeder vessel was scheduled to return on October 3 fully loaded to discharge into the LNG tanks on site for commissioning of the LNG plant for the plant to resume operations. However, due to impending hurricane threat, the schedule was postponed to a later date.
Marsh also revealed that the Port Authorities are planning to embark on a new project to create a facility in Montego Bay to capture wasted energy released during the LNG regasification process. He noted that New Fortress was planning to use the seawater to heat up the LNG and discharge the water back into the sea.
He stated that “We are looking to harness that waste energy to use in cold storage. LNG has accelerated that development and we are in discussions with the other users, such as Petrojam, to make sure that the berth that we are building will cater to their needs. A number of the cruise vessels have signalled that they are in the process of converting to LNG as their fuel source and some of them actually come to Montego Bay. So we have been in discussions – not just we – New Fortress has discussed with those cruise liners the ability to get bunkering, get fuel, in Montego Bay when that becomes readily available”.
Meanwhile, Marsh has expressed that US$40 million berths to be constructed at the Montego Bay port have been accelerated by the LNG programme. He said the Port Authority would build and equip a new devoted cargo facility and turn over the current cargo berth to the cruise ships.
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Source: Jamaica Gleaner
