T&T positioned as Caribbean’s green fuel anchor

Trinidad and To­ba­go is emerg­ing as the Caribbean’s an­chor for green fu­el bunker­ing, ac­cord­ing to a land­mark re­gion­al study un­veiled at the 24th Caribbean Ship­ping Ex­ec­u­tives’ Con­fer­ence (CSEC) in Willem­stad, Cu­raçao.

The study, com­mis­sioned by the Caribbean Ship­ping As­so­ci­a­tion (CSA) and fund­ed by the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB), iden­ti­fies Trinidad’s es­tab­lished methanol, LNG and am­mo­nia in­dus­tries as the foun­da­tion for sup­ply­ing clean­er fu­els across the re­gion.

The Caribbean Shore Pow­er and Green Fu­el Bunker­ing Study, con­duct­ed by Ke­nes­jay Green Lim­it­ed (KGL), sets out a phased roadmap for mar­itime de­car­bon­i­sa­tion tai­lored to Caribbean re­al­i­ties. Rather than wait­ing for reg­u­la­to­ry man­dates, the study em­pha­sizes that com­mer­cial de­mand will dri­ve ear­ly adop­tion of clean en­er­gy so­lu­tions in re­gion­al ports.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go has the in­dus­tri­al base and en­er­gy ex­per­tise to lead the Caribbean’s tran­si­tion to green fu­els,” said Philip Julien, Chair­man of KGL. “This is not about start­ing from ze­ro. The in­fra­struc­ture and know-how al­ready ex­ist, and the study shows how we can se­quence in­vest­ments smart­ly to avoid strand­ed as­sets.”

The re­port rec­om­mends a hub‑and‑spoke mod­el, des­ig­nat­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go as the green fu­el bunker­ing hub, while Bar­ba­dos and The Ba­hamas take the lead on shore pow­er pi­lots. Re­ceiv­ing ports such as Ja­maica and Suri­name would then be in­te­grat­ed in lat­er phas­es, en­abling ef­fi­cient scal­ing with­out du­pli­cat­ing heavy in­fra­struc­ture.

For Trinidad, the find­ings re­in­force its role as a re­gion­al en­er­gy leader at a time when glob­al ship­ping is un­der pres­sure to cut green­house gas emis­sions. The study high­lights that the coun­try’s methanol and am­mo­nia sec­tors can piv­ot to­ward sup­ply­ing low‑car­bon fu­els, po­si­tion­ing its ports as crit­i­cal nodes in the Caribbean’s de­car­bon­i­sa­tion strat­e­gy.

“This work is part of the IDB’s ef­fort to sup­port stronger, for­ward-look­ing en­er­gy plan­ning in the Caribbean,” said Rober­to G. Aiel­lo, En­er­gy Co­or­di­na­tor for the Caribbean at the IDB. “Un­der­stand­ing fu­ture de­mand for clean­er fu­els and shore-side pow­er will be es­sen­tial to guid­ing ef­fi­cient and well-timed in­vest­ments.”

The re­port cau­tions against pre­ma­ture cap­i­tal com­mit­ments, urg­ing ports to pri­or­i­tize pol­i­cy align­ment, grid stud­ies and safe­ty codes be­fore break­ing ground. It al­so warns of the risks of strand­ed as­sets if in­fra­struc­ture is built ahead of de­mand.

Re­gion­al stake­hold­ers are al­ready tak­ing note. The UWI-Caribbean Ship­ping Lanes Project has sig­nalled it will in­te­grate the study’s in­sights in­to its work at the In­ter­na­tion­al Mar­itime Or­ga­ni­za­tion, while the Be­lize Port Au­thor­i­ty has wel­comed the find­ings as a re­source for ev­i­dence-based de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

For Trinidad and To­ba­go, the mes­sage is clear: its en­er­gy lega­cy can be lever­aged to se­cure a lead­er­ship role in the Caribbean’s mar­itime tran­si­tion, en­sur­ing com­pet­i­tive­ness while ad­vanc­ing cli­mate goals.