Carib Trading Won Bid to Ship LPG from U.S. Gulf Coast to Belize
Gilbert Canton
In responding to statements made in an interview given by attorney Audrey Matura, the managing director of the National Gas Company told News Five today that with the exception of a business tax, it is still required to pay all other duties, including the general sales tax and environmental tax. The company, he reiterated, will be returned to the Government of Belize at the end of the fifteen-year contract.
Dr. Gilbert Canton, Managing Director, National Gas Company
“I don’t think there’s any victim, I mean we are sticking a pin in the supply chain in terms of exactly where the product comes into Belize for the same reasons I mentioned before, for energy security, for price transparency, for quality control and to create a level playing field downstream of the importation sector. The three companies, backing up a little bit, NGC in late last year issued a tender for supply to the port. We offered this to the three companies also, that they could come in and they can actually bid on the supply through the marine terminal in Big Creek. Their ships pass Belize all the time in route to their different terminals, so it made sense that they could come in or the same way they want to deliver it to the terminal in Belize. So they could have been active participants in the supply chain. They were not ruled out completely from the importation, it was just a different modality of how they wanted or could participate in it. So there‘s really no victims, they choose not to participate. We had four bids that came in and we issued, the successful bidder was a company called Carib Trading LPG. They trade throughout the region, they deliver into Honduras at Roatan, they deliver to Chevron in Honduras and throughout the whole of the Caribbean they are a huge player and they were the ones that were successful for the bid. So the transparency in the pricing now is going to be basically is that we‘re going to be indexed to the Mont Belvieu index out of the U.S. Gulf Coast and then there was a margin that was bid as to who has the lowest margin to deliver that product to Belize. That‘s how it works now. We just want to make it clear to everybody that this really a huge investment in public infrastructure that‘s needed in this country. It belongs to the Government of Belize and we are only facilitating it as private sector by having the technical capabilities and the financial resources to put this project together. But ultimately, in fifteen years when it is turned over to the Government of Belize, G.O.B. and the people of Belize get a sixty million dollar, modern, state of the art facility that belongs to the people of Belize. This is just a modality of getting to that point for necessary infrastructure in the country. It‘s not like this is a private sector entity that‘s getting a monopoly to run forever and make oodles of money. It‘s not that at all.”
