Tobago almost ready to export natural gas

Prime Minister Patrick Manning announced on Friday that Tobago will be able to export natural gas to the Caribbean by the middle of 2011, due to the its new $485 million power station which will be fed by a new gas line from Trinidad.

Manning was at the time commissioning the Cove Power Station at the Cove Eco-Industrial and Business Park at Lowlands, Tobago accompanied by several Cabinet members, Tobago House of Assembly Chief Secretary Orville London and senior Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission executives.

The "dual fire" power station, which will be able to produce 64 megawatts, can operate on both natural gas and diesel as a back-up. Trinidad and Tobago earns the lion's share of its external revenue from exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG), produced four Atlantic LNG trains located in Point Fortin, Trinidad.

Manning said natural gas exports from Tobago could be used for the proposed Eastern Caribbean Natural Gas Pipeline.

"The availability of gas in Tobago now places Tobago in a position where, to the extent that we take the decision to export gas to the islands north of Trinidad and Tobago, especially Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines and as far north as St Lucia by compressed means, it means that Tobago will now become an exporter of natural gas," Manning said.

He said this will all be due to the new power station, which will receive the natural gas "from the east coast of Trinidad".

He noted that the country's natural gas company is building a facility near the power station that will be completed by mid-2011. When that's complete, he said, Tobago will no longer need to import LNG from Trinidad.

"It is, therefore, an important step in strengthening the autonomy that the island must enjoy within the unitary state of Trinidad and Tobago," Manning said.

Public Utilities Minister Mustapha Abdul-Hamid said his ministry planning on building a 720 megawatt power plant at Sea Lots, Port of Spain to replace the Wrightson Road station. He also said there are plans for another power station at , Wallerfield.

When all that development is completed by 2020 the country's generation capacity would be 3020 megawatts, Abdul-Hamid said.