The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The Caribbean’s Grand Bahama-based first “clean port facility” yesterday confirmed it has raised an additional $10m to fund an expansion that will be completed by this July.

Robert Speller, Clean Marine Group’s managing director, told Tribune Business yesterday that this investment will add to the $3.6m matching financing it received from the Inter-American Development Bank’s (IDB) ‘Blue Tech Challenge’ in 2019.

He explained: “Back in 2019 we raised a total of $3.6m from winning the IDB challenge. So that basically got us off on developing the project, and since then we’re just about to open what we’re calling the first phase of the development at the Grand Bahama Shipyard.”

Mr Speller described this as a “micro plant”, and explained: “This is just this is within the Grand Bahama Shipyard using their waste plant. It’s been a good partnership with them to at least get this small plant up and running, which we’re hoping will go live in April. We’re just commissioning the equipment now.”

Clean Marine Group, which will clean and process ships’ waste, is aiming to base its larger “main facility” at basin three in Freeport Harbour, as it creates the first United Nations (UN) regulated clean port facility under the UN’s International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) regulations.

Mr Speller said: “We’ve raised a further $10m, from what’s called the Sustainable Ocean Fund, which is a big worldwide fund for sustainable oceans for projects for protecting the oceans and the environment.”

This $10m investment will help finance Clean Marine Group’s larger facility in Freeport Harbour, which is targeted for completion in late July and will handle both ships’ bio and petro-chemical waste.

Mr Speller said: “We’re hoping this will attract more vessels to the harbour in Freeport. We’re hoping that it helps to stop some of these larger companies from discharging some of their waste at sea, which has been an issue over the years, and it will enable everybody to have a safe and secure port reception facility that will enable them to offload their ship slops in a safe and environmentally-friendly way.”