BARBADOS LIGHT & POWER’S 30-megawatt generating station at Trents, St Lucy, may cost as much as $300 million.
Word of this comes from chief marketing officer Stephen Worme, who told BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY that several issues needed to be resolved and the plant was yet to go out to tender.
“I would not anticipate construction to start until sometime later next year. There are several factors that will determine the time,” he said.
Speaking at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre after delivering the welcome address at a seminar for registered electricians, Worme said the plant might operate using liquid fuel initially.
“When we started the planning process, there were several options we were considering. One option was natural gas, if it became available, and another was just using liquid fuel.
“What we’re doing right now is planning for both scenarios so that whatever plant we’re going to put down, it will burn liquid fuel or be able to burn natural gas,” he said.
Worme noted that this would require “a little bit more in capital costs upfront; but if natural gas does not become available, we will still be able to operate it in an efficient way by using the lowest-cost residual fuel”.
“We don’t anticipate natural gas to be here within the next four years – if it does come – and we’ll probably need the plant before then,” he said.
In July, Barbados National Oil Company Ltd acting general manager Winton Gibbs said the first natural gas piped from Trinidad and Tobago was expected to arrive in 2013. (NB)
