KINGSTON, Jamaica — Petrojam Limited has fully recovered from the fire that damaged sections of the refinery in March of this year.

Minister of Science, Energy, Telecommunications and Transport, Daryl Vaz, provided an update during his contribution to the 2024/25 Sectoral Debate in the House of Representatives, on Tuesday, June 4.

He noted that during the period January to December 2023, Petrojam supplied 11.79 million barrels of products to the local and export markets.

This, he said, was realised from a mix of refining and importation of finished petroleum products.

“In fact, in 2023 Petrojam supplied 5,000 barrels of the special grade asphalt needed to pave the upgraded runway according to international standards at the Sangster International Airport, during their improvement works over the past years,” Vaz said.

He also shared that Petrojam is tipped to supply the asphalt needed for the upgrade of the runway at the Norman Manley International Airport.

This project is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of the 2024/25 financial year.

Furthermore, during the calendar year, approximately 50,000 barrels of asphalt were supplied to pave the South Coast Highway.

“In support of the local manufacturing sector, Petrojam installed facilities at and commenced supply of approximately 12,000 barrels of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to the Red Stripe Plant on Spanish Town Road in 2023,” Vaz said.

He said January to December 2023 export sales volume was five million barrels and that this equates to approximately US$520 million in export earnings.

Additionally, Petrojam is actively pursuing opportunities to supply players in the region with fuel oil and asphalt.

Meanwhile, Vaz pointed out that the main strategy Petrojam will be pursuing for financial year 2024/2025 is the improvement of operational efficiency.

He said areas of focus include oil loss, crude processing, plant reliability, risk management, and environmental protection/energy conservation.

The minister informed that the project to install facilities to convert heavy fuel oil (HFO), which will result in an estimated increase in asphalt production from 4,000 barrels per month to approximately 19,000 barrels per month, is scheduled for completion in the second quarter of financial year 2024/25.

“This project aims to reduce the excess HFO produced by installing facilities to use HFO from storage to produce asphalt for export and local demand. This project is necessary, as there has been a fallout in the demand for high sulphur fuel oil (HSFO), and the low sulphur crudes currently being processed cannot produce enough asphalt,” Vaz said.

He pointed out that the project will allow continuous production of asphalt, irrespective of the type of crude being processed.

— JIS