This prevented the company from running out of fuel for power plants in Majuro and Ebeye, the two urban centers that have about 70 percent of the total Marshall Islands population of 56,000.
“We were running low on fuel last weekend, but we bought a load of fuel from a high seas tanker,” said Marshalls Energy Company official Steve Wakefield.
The Majuro-based power company, which operates power plants in Majuro, Ebeye, Wotje and Jaluit, normally purchases bulk fuel supplies from SK Networks of South Korea, a company it has done business with since it ended a long-term contract with Mobil Oil Micronesia in 2005.
But in recent weeks MEC has been scrambling to come up with the money to pay for the April shipment of diesel from SK Networks so that a new delivery of more than two million gallons can be scheduled. With the cost of oil on the world market staying in the $100 per barrel range, the cost for these two-to-two-and-a-half-million gallon shipments from SK have mounted above $8 million, according to MEC officials.
