MONTEGO BAY — Energy minister Anthony Hylton says he has begun exploring the possibility of moving the island towards the use of natural gas, and away from petroleum.

“I can tell you that we are looking very intensively at shifting the energy base away from petroleum to natural gas,” he said. “We are doing the in-house analysis at the moment, it looks good but we need to do some further work before I make any specific announcement.”

He was speaking with the Observer after Tuesday’s groundbreaking ceremony for the expansion of the Jamaica Public Service Company’s Bogue Plant in Montego Bay.

More than 90 per cent of the island’s energy needs are now linked to some form of oil-based product. But according to Hylton, the government is now moving towards more energy efficient and cost effective ways of supplying power.

He said he has prepared a preliminary paper on the use of natural gas and a course of action should be arrived at shortly, on whether to take the paper to Parliament’s development council or to move to phase two, which would include a detailed study and costing.

“The general numbers look good. Natural gas, we know, is cleaner; it’s more efficient, it’s widely available and we have an abundant supply in Trinidad, in Venezuela and other parts of the world that we can access now,” Hylton said. “We need to look at other kinds of issues like transportation costs and terminal facilities, and what are the costs to those kinds of things.”

The minister added that any changes from petroleum-based energy to natural gas would include talks with the island’s major companies.

“If we go forward on it, it would be with the discussion and approval of JPSCo, the bauxite company, cement company and other major (electricity) users. But you can rest assured, I’m determined to shift the base,” he said.

Meanwhile, there are other alternate sources of power being explored, such as wind-generated power.

“We are well advanced on a 22 megawatt wind farm project to be implemented at Wigton in Manchester, which will sell electricity to the JPSCo, under a recently agreed power purchase agreement,” Hylton said.