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In a first for Jamaica, 16 tonnes of liquid medical-grade oxygen have been exported to Caribbean neighbour The Bahamas.
The shipment also represents Massy Gas’ first effort in a big export push. The company has another plant in Trinidad and Peter Graham, CEO of Massy Gas Jamaica, sees an opportunity to service the demand for medical gases in the northern Caribbean market.
The shipment was sent off on November 9 but while it was new business in the healthcare arena, it wasn’t the first gas shipment for Massy Gas Jamaica, which operates the IGL and GasPro brands locally.
The company previously exported a medium-size single-container consignment of acetylene gas, used in the welding industry, to the same client in The Bahamas.
In 2018, before being acquired by Massy Group, IGL, Jamaica’s major supplier of medical oxygen, invested US$10 million to construct an air separation unit, or ASU, at the company’s Ferry, St Catherine operational base. Such a unit captures gases in the atmosphere and cools them down to a point where they become liquid and are trapped in that form.
Graham says the facility can produce 95 per cent medical-grade oxygen and five per cent food-grade nitrogen, or can be reconfigured to higher percentages of nitrogen and other gases. It has a capacity of 13 metric tonnes of medical-grade liquid oxygen daily, along with the food-grade liquid nitrogen.
The original daily capacity of the plant is about four tonnes, with the huge shortfall being supplanted by imports. The introduction of a pressure swing adsorption, or PSA, plant at a cost of $100 million allowed IGL to meet local demand even during challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The export of the 16-tonne shipment represents just over 120 per cent of the IGL’s 13 tonne daily capacity. The company is therefore currently in a position to satisfy local demand and look to exports.
“The original capacity was based on local demand. With the installation of a PSA plant, we were able to be in a position to meet local demand and deal with exports. But what we envision is that, if exports really take, we will have to add more capacity,” Graham told the Financial Gleaner.
Prospecting for new business
Graham said the company’s sales team was now assessing which countries have demand and the levels of demand for gas, amid prospecting for new business. The specific countries being targeted were not named, only that they would be within Caricom, nor were Massy Jamaica’s targeted sales disclosed.
“Bahamas was the first one to say yes. We offered a value proposition that is superior to where they’re getting it from now. They said they will come to Jamaica based on transit time, based on price, based on the exact impurity standard,” Graham explained.
“We envision that exports will grow over time and, at some point, we will have to relook capacity. But, for now in the near term, we believe we could do three or four (shipments) a month with current capacity, and push along,” he added.
Graham says the Ferry plant is scalable. He says engineers from the manufacturer in South Africa have already visited to assess what will be needed.
“They were here a couple of months back to do exactly that; to one, optimise production, and two, position us to see if we have to go to a higher output, then how exactly will it be achieved,” Graham said.
Massy Gas operates in Jamaica as IGL. From its Ferry and Spanish Town Road plants, it is the sole producer of a range of gases for use in the health sector, food manufacturing, and industrial applications.
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