The Eastern Caribbean Gas Pipeline Company Limited (ECGPC) is a joint public/private sector company charged with the initiative of building a natural gas distribution network for the Eastern Caribbean chain of islands.
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The proposed pipeline is to build a 600-mile (970 km) long network of undersea pipelines stretching from the generation point in Tobago, northward to other islands including:
In addition to both of the French overseas regions of:
Both islands are considered anchor markets because Martinique and Guadeloupe give the pipeline a good ratio of total population served in comparison to the total distance covered.
The idea had its genesis with Patrick Manning, Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, who announced in his annual budget that his country was going to undertake one of the largest civil engineering project in the Caribbean region.
The project suffered a brief setback when Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez petition intensely that the pipeline should instead originate from Venezuela and should transport oil rather than LNG.[1] Chavez further stated that the pipeline should continue to Cuba and the United States. Which added new dimensions of complexity to the project overall given length. It was mooted that transport liquid natural gas in a liquid form required super chilling the gas and transport of such long distances such as to Cuba would have required new points to re-chill the LNG to keep it in a liquid state during transportation.
In March 2010 the Barbados indicated after a two year hiatus that it would seek to move toward the negotiations stage for the 177-mile (285 km) pipeline from Tobago to Barbados.[2][3][4]
Major investors in the project have included: Guardian Holdings Ltd. (GHL), the Trinidad & Tobago Unit Trust Corp. (UTC), the National Gas Company of Trinidad & Tobago (NGC) (a minority stake holder), and the Intra-Caribbean Gas Pipeline Co., the project's initiator, (also with a minority stake).[5]