Tobago is poised to export natural gas to northern Caribbean countries by mid-2011, due to the establishment of a new $485 million power station which will be fed by a new gas line from Trinidad, Prime Minister Patrick Manning said yesterday.

Manning made the announcement during the commissioning ceremony for the Cove Power Station at the Cove Eco-Industrial and Business Park at Lowlands, Tobago.

The event was attended by several Cabinet members, Tobago House of Assembly Chief Secretary Orville London and senior Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission executives, led by their chairman, Clement Imbert.

The ’dual fire’ power station, which will be able to produce 64 megwatts, can operate on both natural gas and diesel as a back-up and was provided by Power Plants Wartsila which is based in Finland.

Trinidad and Tobago earns most of its revenue from the export of the nation’s bread and butter, liquefied natural gas (LNG), derived from natural gas reserves and generated by the four Atlantic LNG trains located in Point Fortin, Trinidad.

Manning, however, indicated that the natural gas exports from Tobago could be used for the proposed Eastern Caribbean Natural Gas Pipeline, which has been on the drawing board for several years now.

’The availability of gas in Tobago now places Tobago in a position where, to the extent that we take the decision to export gas to the islands north of Trinidad and Tobago, especially Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines and as far north as St Lucia by compressed means, it means that Tobago will now become an exporter of natural gas,’ Manning said.

He said this will all be due to the new power station at Cove Estate, commissioned yesterday, which will receive the natural gas critical to its operations ’from the east coast of Trinidad’, adding, ’The Natural Gas Company (NGC) has embarked on the construction of a facility neighbouring the power station.’

’And the gas line is expected to be completed by mid-2011. This (gas line), together with this new power plant, means that Tobago will no longer need to import LNG from Trinidad. It is, therefore, an important step in strengthening the autonomy that the island must enjoy within the unitary state of Trinidad and Tobago,’ Manning said.

He noted that the new power station will provide several benefits, including ’the reduction of present transmission losses and reduced dependence on diesel fuel when it operates on natural gas, with a lower heat rate’, which translates to a more economic production of electricity.

Public Utilities Minister Mustapha Abdul-Hamid said the new power station at Cove will provide electricity to Tobago, along with the Scarborough power station, which has a generating capacity of 21 megawatts.

Abdul-Hamid also said the Public Utilities Ministry is now in discussion with the Works and Transport Ministry ’for a site for a 720 megawatt power plant at Sea Lots, Port of Spain, which replaces the existing power station at Wrightson Road, and a new power plant is being contemplated for Wallerfield by 2013 as the demand for electricity by 2020 will be 2,460 megawatts’.

’All told, the total generation capacity to 2020 in Trinidad and Tobago will be 3020 megawatts,’ Abdul-Hamid said.