PM Says LNG No Priority:
By Candia Dames -
Nassau, Bahamas:

It appears that the wait by energy companies for Bahamas government approval of their liquefied natural gas projects will get longer.

Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham has said LNG is not a priority for his government.

The LNG issue had been tossed about all during the years of the Christie Administration. Three companies actually submitted their applications under the former Ingraham Administration, which had reportedly granted approvals in principle for the projects.

Last summer, then Attorney General Allyson Maynard-Gibson told The Bahama Journal that the government was negotiating a heads of agreement with the AES Corporation to construct an LNG plant on Ocean Cay and lay a pipeline to Florida to meet that state’s growing demand for energy.

The Suez project – the one planned for Grand Bahama – had been on the table for more than five years now, as has the AES project.

Leslie Miller, the former minister of trade and industry who later became the minister of agriculture and marine resources, had often touted the benefits of LNG.

And the Grand Bahama Port Authority had continued to push the project for Grand Bahama.

The Port Authority views LNG as an important way to continue the diversification of the Grand Bahama economy, which has suffered some setbacks over the last two to three years.

Last year, then Suez CEO William Utt expressed great frustration in waiting for The Bahamas government to make a decision on whether the company’s project for Grand Bhaama would go forward.

He also revealed at the time that Suez, formerly Tractebel, had put its Bahamas plans on the backburner and was instead seeking to build a terminal off the coast of Florida.

Suez is hoping that it would be able to help meet South Florida’s increased demand for energy sources by 2010.

Former Prime Minister Perry Christie had said on numerous occasions that his government was formulating regulations to govern a liquefied natural gas industry, but those regulations were never revealed.

16 May 2007