The Bahamas can expect to lose $1.2 billion in direct income if the LNG regasification terminal proposed by AES is not approved within the near future, Florida Governor Jeb Bush said yesterday.
However, it is for that fact, and the “intense meeting” between Cabinet and Governor Jeb Bush, that it is expected that the LNG proposal will be passed.
The terminal planned for Ocean Cay in the Biminis is seeing stiff competition from Suez Energy North America, formerly Tractebel. A company representative stated that the company is now looking at building a “buoy-like” terminal 12 miles off the Florida coast that would feed natural gas through submerged pipelines directly to the state after their project for Grand Bahama harbour was not approved.
Governor Bush said that the bottom line is that there is not enough demand in Florida to legitimize two facilities, echoing the message that the Bahamas needs to “make up their mind” if they want an
LNG facility.
“We approved as a government the rights necessary to run pipelines underneath our reefs back up and into Fort Everglades to where the gas lines would connect into the existing pipeline. We have approved both of the projects from that perspective and I don’t think there are significant environmental issues if that’s the perspective that the Bahamian government wants to take.
“About a month ago a competitor (Suez Energy) came to us with a new technology which is a buoy technology where these large LNG tankers would come, connect into this buoy, pipe the LNG through a similar pipeline, connect into Fort Everglades where it would be regasified.”
Governor Bush added that for those who don’t believe that such a programme would work, there are already four in the US.
“It’s an option, and it’s an option that would probably go off the table if the Bahamas decides to move forward. Because the first thing that occurs to me is that there is not enough capacity to demand two terminals being built at the same time,” he said.
Echoing this sentiment, US Ambassador John Rood warned that if the Bahamas takes too long; Florida would approve the offshore terminal thus undermining the $1.2 billion in revenue that the country could have received.
“I think the governor’s point is that there are two proposals in the Bahamas and one in Florida. The first one that gets the go-ahead is going to be the winner. But if the Bahamas waits too long the one in Florida will probably be the one.
“However if one of the two in the Bahamas gets the go ahead right now it will probably become the successful project. But I think he indicated pretty clearly that its important to Florida to get LNG, whether its through the facility in Florida or one of the facilities in the Bahamas,” he said.
Source: The Tribune
