Page 8 - LatAmOil Week 13 2021

LatAmOil US VIRGIN ISL ANDS LatAmOil

The Limetree Bay refinery is near St. Croix (Photo: Limetree Bay Ventures)

The agency did not refer directly to the petition broad range of stakeholders.”
in its statement, though it did mention “con- The Limetree Bay refinery has a design
cerns raised by and appeals filed by [NGOs], capacity of 350,000 barrels per day (bpd). The
members of the community and the company facility was previously owned by Hovensa, a
itself.” joint venture set up by Hess, a US-based inde-
It also indicated that the Biden administra- pendent, and Venezuela’s national oil company
tion was particularly keen on taking a closer (NOC) PdVSA. Hovensa shut the refinery down
look at the matter because of the Limetree Bay in 2012 and then declared bankruptcy in 2015
refinery’s location within a disadvantaged com- before agreeing to sell it to Limetree Bay Ven-
munity, citing “environmental justice concerns.” tures, a company formed by EIG Global Energy
Walter Mugdan, an acting regional admin- Partners and ArcLight Capital Partners of the
istrator at the EPA, commented: “Withdraw- US the following year. In the interim, the plant
ing this permit will allow EPA to reassess what has been used mostly as a storage and transship-
measures are required at the Limetree facility to ment facility.
safeguard the health of local communities in the Initially, Limetree Bay Ventures said it
Virgin Islands, while providing regulatory cer- intended to bring 200,000 bpd of capacity back
tainty to the company. Today’s decision exem- online by December 2019. It failed to meet that
plifies good governance and EPA’s commitment deadline, though, and then encountered addi-
to addressing critical environmental justice and tional delays in 2020 as a result of the coronavi-
economic concerns in the Virgin Islands with a rus (COVID-19) pandemic. ™

COLOMBIA
Ecopetrol setting up special

committee to value ISA stake

COLOMBIA’S national oil company (NOC) to evaluate the valuation of ISA, the price range
Ecopetrol said last week that it was taking steps and/or the price of the potential transaction and
to determine the exact value of Interconexion make the necessary recommendations to the
Electrica SA (ISA), the country’s electricity board of directors,” it said.
transmission system operator (TSO). State-owned Ecopetrol did not say when the
In a statement dated March 26, Ecopet- new entity might begin functioning. It did state,
rol explained that its board of directors had though, that all four seats on the committee
approved plans for the establishment of a special would be filled by independent members of the
committee to address the matter, in light of the NOC’s board – specifically, by Carlos Gustavo
NOC’s plans to acquire a 51.4% stake in ISA. The Cano, Sergio Restrepo, Santiago Perdomo and
committee “will act as a temporary mechanism Esteban Piedrahita.

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 13 01•April•2021