CARICOM Concerned over region’s US$9b fuel import bill
CARICOM’s Trade and Economic Integration officer, Desiree Field-Ridley has bemoaned the Region’s US$9 billion a year annual fuel import bill which she said was the result of the Caribbean over-dependence on imported petroleum and petroleum products. Addressing a a Special Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) at the Hyatt Regency in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago yesterday Mrs Field-Ridley pointed out that this increasing energy import bill, “continues to have a deleterious effect on the economic and social development of the net energy importing countries of Caricom,” she said. “It is also the reason why the region continues to search for ways to mitigate the impact of the high price of oil, especially with respect to food and other commodities.
Field-Ridley said achieving energy security through the diversification of energy supplies is a major focus of the Revised Draft Regional Energy Policy. In that regard, she noted, it was only rational that countries in the region without proven hydrocarbon resources aggressively pursue harnessing of abundant renewable energy resources such as solar energy, wind power, hydropower, biomass or marine energy.
“Renewable energy and energy efficiency are no longer peripheral issues. These are now the business of every Caricom member state,” she emphasized. Field-Ridley commended the T&T government for demonstrating leadership in that area despite petroleum and gas resources and lower energy costs.
“Beyond the traditional trade in energy, the energy sector remains an area for significant increased collaboration and cooperation to the benefit of all Member States. There are opportunities for cooperation around energy services in the oil and gas sector, capacity building in some areas especially in clean energy and renewable energy, and also for the economic development towards the establishment of enterprises as endorsed by the Conference of Heads of Government,” the CARICOM official declared.
On the issue of regional energy security, Trinidad’s Energy Minister Kevin Ramnarine said T&T’s refineries sustained the Caribbean for decades with 20 per cent of output from the Petrotrin refinery going to the regional market. He said Venezuela’s introduction of PetroCaribe in 2003 added to regional energy security. “To date all Caricom countries continue to purchase from Petrotrin in order to guarantee security of supply. In fact the volumes supplied to the Eastern Caribbean Caricom market accounts for 55 per cent of their demand,” he said.
“Apart from Petrotrin, Phoenix Gas Processors Limited supplies countries in the region with LPG which is removed from natural gas.” Ramnarine said there is an emerging market in the Caribbean for natural gas and two companies, Centrica and Gasfin, are in different stages of preparation for a CNG export project and small scale LNG export project. The minister said Block 21 on Trinidad’s north coast and the adjoining Grenadian acreage could be explored jointly by T&T and Grenada.
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| Date Posted | March 04 2013 |