As the Caribbean is made up of relatively small Islands with small ports, with limited sizes of liquid bulk tanks, logistics with small vessels makes delivery complicated and expensive. As demand for fuels has increased, there has become a great need for large volume liquid bulk storage terminals as strategic hubs with high throughputs for the suppliers of various products.
Mid Atlantic Energy’s location along the Northwest Providence Channel off the southern tip of Grand Bahama Island is just 90 miles (145 kilometers) from the US Eastern Seaboard. Currently, the Island is being used by other energy firms for storage, bunkering and blending and is used as a holding area for forwarding crude oil deliveries to North America and as a “break-bulk” point for transshipment operations. In addition, fuel oil and lighter products may also be transshipped at the proposed sea island.
An Ideal Location
The relatively shallow water access to the United States Gulf Coast and East Coast ports require the final delivery segment of the crude oil voyage from the North Sea, Middle East, North Africa and other foreign origination points to these regions be accomplished in smaller shuttle-size vessels. The transfer of crude to shuttle vessels are accomplished at other facilities on the island, or via ship-to-ship lightering in the Gulf of Mexico.
This makes the complex ideally suited as a merchant facility for storing and blending liquid products, transshipping and terminal operations for the Arabian Gulf, West African and Northwest European trade to the United States’ East coast and Gulf coast, as well as for North American trade to Europe, Latin America and the Pacific. The site has sufficient channel frontage and channel depth to allow for deep-water ships and ocean-going barges, and will be able to handle both ULCC and VLCC tankers in addition to smaller tankers to perform ship to ship transfers and shore tank transfers. Photo of site location is below.
The advantage for suppliers will be that they can store high volumes by using large vessels and can distribute it from the terminal everywhere they want all over the Caribbean or to the US Gulf region. The terminal development of Mid Atlantic Energy will fill a needed shortage in the Caribbean and US-Gulf region, as there are four major competitors in throughput, but with no capacity left for extra throughput.
Approvals
Written Approval in Principle has been given by the Office of the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas for the development of an oil storage facility site of 20 million barrels; for a Liquefied Natural Gas import, storage, gas processing and regasification facility; a Natural Gas Liquids processing, storage and shipping facility; and for the construction of an up to 250,000 barrel per day oil refinery. www.Bahamas.gov.bs
The development is expected to provide significant and numerous economic benefits to the Bahamas in the form of employment opportunities, currency flows and industrial development.
Job Creation
Phase I Employment during construction is expected to peak at approximately 2500 skilled craft during the 40+ months of construction.
By Year 5 Operations staff after startup is estimated to be 100.
15 – 20% of personnel needed for construction and operations are anticipated to be trained Bahamians. In addition, there will be numerous contract services opportunities for local companies.
Environment
International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) environmental guidelines provide quantitative and/or qualitative measures for air quality, water use and quantity, management of hazardous and toxic materials and waste and noise control. Safeguarding the area’s biodiversity and coral reef ecosystems and safeguards for spills are also high priorities. With the application of proper design controls, operational and construction practices, the impacts on the environment will meet or exceed IFC’s and local guidelines.
Mid Atlantic Energy will be required to commence an environmental impact assessment of each portion of the development before commencing construction in order to determine whether such portion of the development can be implemented in an environmentally safe and sustainable manner.