Americas News
Call for Jamaica to Get Serious About LNG Bunkering
Rear Admiral Peter Brady, director general of the Maritime Authority of Jamaica, has told Jamaica to "get serious" about liquefied natural gas (LNG) bunkering, and to take advantage of opportunities that come from the widening of the Panama Canal, local news service The Gleaner reports.
"Let us be prepared. Let us talk to our superiors, and let us spread the word. Jamaica has to go LNG, and we have to get serious about LNG. It is coming," Brady said last week at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO)'s national seminar on the feasibility of LNG bunkering.
IMO consultant Felton Gilmore, who was reported to have already pitched the idea of LNG bunkering to a number of players in both the private and public sectors, said the chances of Jamaica benefiting significantly from LNG bunkering would increase with the widening of the Panama Canal.
"Where you are set logistically, Jamaica is on the highway between the Panama Canal and certain spaces in the United States. This might be the place to set up a bunker facility," Gilmore said.
"You can use it here to produce kilowatt energy, and you can use it to sell into an open market because if there are very few distribution points, the rates are going to be driven up, and that's where you are going to benefit. You have an opportunity now as a nation to take the bite out of this market and do pretty well for the next 25 years."
Use of LNG as a marine fuel has the potential of offer ship operators both environmental and cost advantages, and although momentum for the alternative fuel is building, some have noted significant technological barriers to adoption in the short- to mid-term.
