New Jamaican bunker supplier reportedly set to start operating this month

With Jamaica eyeing new business opportunitities arising from the expansion of the Panama Canal, there's news that one such project is almost ready to start operating.

According to a report in the online magazine, Ship & Bunker, a new physical bunker supplier, West Indies Petroleum (WIP), is set to start operations this month in Jamaica, seeking to take advantage of the widening of the Panama Canal.

"We set up in 2012, and having now met all the required government regulations we're excited to begin officially on the 25th of November,"  Ship & Bunker quotes a company spokesperson as saying.

Further, the spokesperson reportedly said the company was "proud to be the only all Jamaican owned company in the bunker market."

WIP reportedly disclosed that it will supply both IFO380 and MGO from a 4,800 metric tonne combined capacity barge at Kingston, and by road tank wagon at all 9 ports across Jamaica.

According to the report, the company has a supply agreement with the local refinery, Petrojam Ltd, and is said to have arranged "flexible storage" on land that can grow as the need arrises.

All supplied products were said to meet the applicable ISO 8217/2005 standards.

"We will focus on making sure we give our customers what we promise, and hope we can take full advantage of all the opportunities of Jamaica's strategic position. With the widening of the Panama Canal, I think we'll see more and larger ships coming through and I hope Jamaica can realize its potential as the logistics hub of the Caribbean" the spokesperson reportedly said.

Biden bullish on Canal as well

The Government of Jamaica has been seeking to drum up significant new investments to establish a logistics hub on the island to benefit directly from the expansion of the Panama Canal.

The island's strategic location on an important hemispheric shipping route has been sited as a key advantage in this regard.

The United States is also getting in on the act, with Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday touring the expanded canal, being completed at a cost of $5.25 billion. He said the enlarged facility will also bring more jobs and development to U.S. ports.

Bident told Panama's President, Ricardo Martinelli that modernizing the canal was not just an investment in Panama's future but "also a consequential investment in the future of the United States of America."

The Miami Herald Americas, reporting on the visit, said Biden declared the the expansion project had not only created jobs in Panama but also will spur more employment in the United States and “up and down the Americas.”

The expansion, which is expected to be completed in mid-2015, will allow the maxed-out canal to handle so-called post-Panamax ships, which can carry about three times as much cargo as the vessels that currently traverse the canal.

Jamaican projects

Jamaica is seeking to enlarge the Port of Kingston to facilitate these larger ships and to build a new transshipment port off the coast of southern Clarendon. That project, to be spearheaded by Chinese investors, has been mired in controversy because the Goat Islands location is a sensitive location, declared a protected area for environmental/ecological purposes..

While Jamaica seeks to get these projects going, the United States is apparently going ahead with its own port expansion initiatives.

The Miami Herald Americas reports that there are only two East Coast ports — Norfolk and Baltimore — that are deep enough to handle fully loaded post-Panamax ships, but that  "PortMiami, which has already awarded a $122-million contract for dredging its channel to 50-52 feet, and the Port of New York/New Jersey also are expected to be big-ship-ready by the time the expansion is completed."