Diesel on Borrowed Time as Premier Moots 18-Month Exit Timescale to Replace with LNG

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Diesel on Borrowed Time as Premier Moots 18-Month Exit Timescale to Replace with LNG

October 19, 2026, 1:57 PM · Updated October 20, 2026, 9:24 AM · 10 min read · Ask

Premier André Ebanks MP addresses the Chamber of Commerce parliamentary luncheon on Friday 9 October, where he said URCO’s analysis of getting off diesel will show what can be done in the next 18 to 20 months — Photo: Courtesy of The Cayman Islands Chamber of Commerce

Editorial note: This article was amended on 20 October 2026. The photograph has been updated from an official portrait to an image of the Premier addressing the Chamber of Commerce parliamentary luncheon on 9 October, and the caption has been amended. The earlier caption stated that the Premier wants a costed route off diesel within 18 to 20 months; he said government would receive URCO’s analysis and “assess our options to see what can be done in the next 18 to 20 months”. The Office of the Premier wrote to TCJ on 19 October 2026 to clarify the point.

Cayman's electricity came about 97% from diesel last year, a national policy approved by Cabinet says 30% of it must be renewable by 2030, and the Premier has now told the business community that he wants a costed route off the fuel within 18 to 20 months, with liquefied natural gas back on the table if solar cannot be built fast enough. Caribbean Utilities Company (CUC), in response, has disclosed that its LNG procurement already has a preferred bidder and that gas could be in use "as soon as 2029".

Speaking at the Chamber of Commerce's annual parliamentary luncheon at the Kimpton on Friday 9 October, André Ebanks MP said Finance Minister Rolston Anglin MP had asked the Utility Regulation and Competition Office (URCO) "to take another look and analysis of how we are going to get ourselves off of diesel".

"If it's going to be too slow and you can't do 100% of the solar, do we need to look at LNG as a transitional fuel?" he said. "Those of us who are 100% solar, including myself, have to think how we're going to get this done, because this problem cannot go on another political term. Our country needs breakthrough relief now."

Government, he said, would receive the regulator's report "with a timeline as quickly as possible, to assess our options to see what can be done in the next 18 to 20 months."

The remarks set a political deadline that the published numbers make stark. CUC, the Grand Cayman generator and distributor, reported in its 2025 annual report that renewable sources supplied 21.4 million kilowatt hours of the 779.6 million kWh it generated, a little under 3%. To do that it burned 40.6 million imperial gallons of diesel at an average of US$3.55 a gallon, a net fuel bill of US$141.6 million that is passed through to customers without margin. The National Energy Policy 2024 to 2045, approved by Cabinet on 16 April 2024 as the first update to the original 2017 policy, sets interim targets of 30% renewable electricity by 2030 and 70% by 2037 on the way to 100% by 2045.

"The enemy on your bill is fuel cost"

The Premier was explicit that his target was the fuel line, not the utility. He asked CUC president and chief executive Richard Hew to stand, to laughter, and said that if anyone received "the vilification treatment that MPs get", it was Mr Hew. Visiting Financial Action Task Force officials, he said, had been "stunned by Cayman's infrastructure", and CUC was "world class".

"So I submit to you all, if you can see where the red is, the enemy is not CUC," he said, pointing to a slide of a typical bill. "We as a country have to identify that the enemy on your bill, on all of our bills, is fuel cost, not CUC. That is the line that OT leaders, including myself, said we have to attack."

"If that line goes down for every household and every business, then, guess what, every piece of cost of living in the country goes down."

The fuel cost charge, approved by the regulator and adjusted monthly, rose sharply this summer on the back of conflict in the Middle East. Government's response, announced on 29 April, was a three-phase plan whose first phase capped the residential fuel charge at CI$0.18 per kWh on the first 2,000 kWh of monthly use, for customers consuming between 101 and 3,500 kWh, and waived import duty on gasoline and diesel from 1 June to 30 September. The electricity credits run on bills issued from July to October, and the package was costed at about CI$9 million. The plan's second phase, from 2027, is an expanded home energy efficiency retrofit programme; its third is the solar scale-up.

The Premier acknowledged that, strong fiscal numbers notwithstanding, "there's still pressure on households. We know it." The relief, he said, was never built to last. "It is a short-term measure. We built it as a partnership with CUC because it's tough," he said. "We live in a country where we rely on imports. So no government here, no member, no matter who's elected, can control if countries go to conflict overseas and prices go up." Government had to "think very long and hard" about what followed: "Do too much, that fiscal performance that I showed you can go another way. Don't do anything at all, people don't get help."

A second look at a fuel already studied

The Premier's phrase was "another look", and the record shows why. The policy's own Implementation and Monitoring Plan, published by URCO, contains an action to determine whether natural gas, imported as LNG or compressed natural gas, is "viable, feasible and safe as a transitional power generation option", and records its status as "Initial independent study has been completed". The plan's fuel sector strategy likewise directs government to consider transitional fuels "where economically advantageous and prudent".

CUC, it emerges, is well past finding out. In a written response to The Caymanian Journal (TCJ) on 13 October, a CUC spokesperson said the company "has conducted an RFP with regional LNG suppliers with approval from URCO" and that "this procurement has now been approved to enter the detailed feasibility and project development stage with a preferred bidder". The process "has attracted five proposals from recognised LNG providers".

CUC completed life-cycle upgrades on five generating units in 2025, and the spokesperson said all five "are largely ready for conversion to run in dual fuel configuration", needing only gas fuel systems and engine room upgrades. Those engines represent about 64 megawatts, 39% of CUC's installed capacity of 166 MW, and a further 40 MW of existing capacity can be converted.