The consortium looking at building a mini-oil refinery here still has to do market studies and clarified that the refinery could take between 18 months and three years to establish.
An information session was hosted at the Princess Hotel yesterday and Prime Minister Samuel Hinds said that a mini-refinery here has potential but he did not want the potential to be overstated.
Questioned on environmental issues as it relates to the proposed refinery yesterday, Director of Energy Systems at Prime Energy Raul Arrondo said that it was too early to approach the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for approval. “Before we do the environmental study, we have to do our commercial study,” he said, while adding that they have to get a better feel for what is the actual demand of fuel and it products here.
They can then tailor the refinery to maximise on production of those products and will then have a better picture of what the whole endeavour looks like and then could go EPA with it, he said. As to when the refinery can actually come on stream, he said that this depends on what the market is requiring in terms of quality and
