By
Luis Araujo
The Trinidad Guardian
PORT
SPAIN
Petroleumworld.com
02 19 06
The Patrick Manning administration is waiting on the outcome
of a front end engineering design (Feed) study before committing
to proceed with an LNG regasification and storage project in
Jamaica, a newspaper there reported.
The
Jamaica Observer said the Feed study is not expected to be finished
before June 2006. The LNG project is being 40 per cent financed
by the T&T government and 60 per cent financed by Jamaica.
This
phase has to be completed before financial arrangements can
be put in place.
The
process of putting to tender the engineering, procurement and
construction (EPC) contract is expected to be done towards the
end of the year, after which the main construction work can
begin.
The
newspaper quoted Zia Mian, the energy adviser to Jamaica’s
Prime Minister PJ Patterson and financial adviser on the LNG
project, as saying the construction of the tank—the main
storage facility—could take up to three years.
“The
tank is one of the most critical components and is one of the
most expensive component,” said Mian.
“It
could take between 30 and 36 months to construct and we are
not able to get the order out before the EPC contract is given.
We would have to place the order now to get the tank by the
end of 2008, although when we went to Korea and Japan all the
manufacturers of tanks were fully booked, which could cause
a delay.”
