Rusal to develop ethane power plant in Jamaica

Jamaica's energy ministry has accepted a plan by Russian aluminum producer Rusal to develop a 140MW ethane-fired power plant to supply its mothballed bauxite refinery in Jamaica.

The project will be commissioned by the end of 2017, according to the head of the ministry's power development unit Eset, Vincent Lawrence.

Rusal's 1.7mn t/y Alpart refinery in the southwestern part of the island will use 50MW of the power, with the rest to be sold to local grid manager JPSco.

Ethane is a natural gas liquid that is used mainly as a feedstock in petrochemical industries.

The proposal for the ethane power plant was proposed to the government in July by the manager of Rusal's Jamaican operations, Igor Dorofeev.

Rusal was planning to build a 150MW facility, Dorofeev had said then. The decision to develop a 140MW plant instead was reached after consultations between Eset and Rusal, an energy ministry official tells Argus.

Rusal closed the refinery in 2009 because imported fuel oil used to operate it made the facility uncompetitive. The company has two smaller bauxite refineries on the island that are also closed.

Jamaica is a major producer of bauxite ore that is refined to produce alumina, and which is used for making aluminum.

Rusal plans to develop an ethane-receiving terminal at Port Kaiser on the southwestern coast, with the fuel to be transported to the refinery by pipeline or railway tanks.

Rusal had said in April 2013 it was negotiating with BP's US-based subsidiary BPEC to supply up to 1.5bn m³/yr of gas to fuel the Alpart refinery.

But ethane will be cheaper than gas, Dorofeev said, without indicating the project cost.

The ethane would be purchased from US firm American Ethane, he said.

American Ethane director Walt Teter confirmed his firm's involvement in the project.

"We are working with the government and Rusal to finalize the transaction and proceed with the required work program," he said.

The start-up is working to develop a 8mn t/yr ethane export capacity in St. James parish, Lousiana, north of the Port of New Orleans. The contract with Rusal would be American Ethane's first firmed up supply contract.

The export facility is planned for a 2016 start-up in the fourth quarter. American Ethane plans to finish up permitting and engineering work by the end of this year, but so far only preliminary approval from St. James parish has been announced.

The export terminal would compete with Enterprise Products Partners' planned 7.2mn bl/month terminal in Morgan's Point, Texas, on the Houston Ship Channel. It is slated to begin operations in the third quarter of 2016.

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