Depute for Saint Martin and Saint Barthelemy Franz Gumbs raised an interesting issue in this newspaper’s Friday/Saturday edition. He expressed concern about shipping company CMA CGM’s ending of the Le Havre-Philipsburg route for ocean freight. Goods from France will now come via Guadeloupe or Martinique.
This has to do with switching to much larger container ships that run on liquefied natural gas (LNG) to achieve decarbonisation objectives of the maritime industry at international, European and national level starting next year. These will apparently not be able to berth in Great Bay and instead go to Point-a-Pitre.
The latter obviously has implications for Port of St. Maarten Group (PSG), especially should other lines take similar action. Caretaker Minister of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transport and Telecommunication TEATT Grisha Heyliger-Marten recently told Parliament about a new Crane Inventory Depot and expanding the capacity to handle refrigerated containers, among other plans to strengthen the facility at Point Blanche’s hub function for neighbouring islands.
However, the use of bigger vessels powered by LNG may be a threat to those efforts. That also puts the offer by Puerto Rico-based Crowley to develop an LNG transhipment terminal in St. Maarten in a different light, never mind the secondary benefit of cleaner fuel for local utility company GEBE to produce energy.
As stated in this column earlier, if such an endeavour can help safeguard the country’s leading regional position for both cruise and cargo operations in an environmentally-friendly manner and without irresponsible financial risk for government, it might be something to consider.
