Corrected: Centrica wins three-year LNG supply deal to Jamaica

Corrected: In the third paragraph of the story below, the capacity of the Golar Arctic LNG carrier was incorrectly reported. A corrected story follows.

UK-based utility Centrica will supply LNG to Jamaica under a three-year agreement, according to market sources.

The deal would be via US-based New Fortress Energy, which has an agreement to supply utility Jamaica Public Services (JPS).

New Fortress has the 138,000 cubic metre (cbm) Golar Arctic under charter as a floating storage unit (FSU) for the project.

Representatives from New Fortress and Centrica did not respond to requests for comment before publication.

The Golar Arctic loaded a commissioning cargo from Nigeria LNG in July 2016 before arriving in Jamaica in August 2016. Since then, the FSU has not received a commercial cargo, but sources said New Fortress Energy has been in the market seeking supply.

Centrica will deliver as many as three cargoes to Jamaica in the first year, and up to four cargoes in the second year, one source said.

New Fortress signed an agreement with JPS to provide LNG for JPS’ 120MW power plant in Bogue, Montego Bay, Jamaica. As part of the agreement, New Fortress supplies the LNG and regasification infrastructure for the project. The power plant was converted to run on gas-fired generation instead of automotive diesel fuel.

New Fortress Energy is the developer of two peakshaving liquefaction plants in Florida. The company was initially expected to provide small-scale volumes using ISO containers trucked from the peakshaving facilities to Florida ports. However, New Fortress instead has turned to conventional-sized LNG cargoes to fulfill its supply for JPS.

Sources said the Golar Arctic FSU is equipped to receive cargoes using the ship-to-ship transfer process. The small-scale, 6,500cbm Coral Anthelia LNG carrier, also under charter by New Fortress, is the designated shuttle for the Bogue power plant, which is near Montego Bay on the northern coast of the island.

According to LNG Edge, the Golar Arctic began moving on 19 February and is currently in transit heading east from Jamaica.

One market source said it was possible that the Golar Arctic could be moving to another location to conduct an STS transfer with another vessel near the eastern coast of Jamaica.

The 162,000cbm Golar Kelvin loaded from Point Fortin on 20 February and is currently positioned heading toward Jamaica, Edge also showed. The vessel is under charter to Spain’s Gas Natural.

The end destination of the Golar Kelvin is unconfirmed, but it was unlikely to be heading to the east coast of Mexico or the US Gulf, thus making the cargo a possibility for Jamaica’s next imported cargo.

JPS announced on 3 February that the company’s subsidiary South Jamaica Power Company signed an engineering, procurement and construction agreement with Spanish firm TSK to construct the planned 190MW power plant in Old Harbour Bay. This is expected to underpin a new onshore LNG terminal. The power plant is expected to be completed by early 2019, according to the JPS statement. ruth.liao@icis.com