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There is a particular kind of strategic opportunity that announces itself loudly, creates enormous noise in global capitals, and then  in the distraction of geopolitical spectacle, passes unacknowledged by the small nations best positioned to seize it. We are living inside one of those moments right now.

President Trump has announced that massive numbers of completely empty oil tankers, some of the largest vessels on earth, are heading to the United States to load American crude, as Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has severed roughly twenty per cent of the world’s oil supply from global markets. The International Energy Agency has called this the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market. Brent crude peaked at US$126 per barrel. Over 230 loaded tankers sit stranded inside the Persian Gulf.

Simultaneously, Venezuela, the nation with the world’s largest proven oil reserves, Jamaica’s historic crude supplier, and a foundational partner in Petrojam’s original operating design  is back in play. With Maduro removed by US military operation in January 2026, a US-backed transitional framework is being installed. Analysts project Venezuelan production could reach 1.7–1.8 million barrels per day by 2028. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright has announced Washington intends to oversee Venezuelan oil sales indefinitely.

And sitting at the precise geographic intersection of these two seismic shifts, equidistant between the US Gulf Coast and the rest of the world, two days from the Panama Canal, on the route every loaded tanker must travel is Jamaica, and its largely underutilised national refinery: Petrojam.

Jamaica sits at the precise geographic crossroads of the most consequential oil market shift in a generation. The question is whether we have the courage to act like it.

The Vacuum No One Is Talking About

The Caribbean’s refining capacity has collapsed from over 1.6 million barrels per day in the 1990s to approximately 160,000 barrels per day today. The 650,000 bpd St Croix plant is closed. Curaçao’s 335,000 bpd Isla is silent. Aruba’s 235,000 bpd San Nicolas facility has stalled repeatedly. Trinidad shut its 175,000 bpd Pointe-a-Pierre refinery in 2018 and it remains in preservation mode to this day.

Into this vacuum, Petrojam, a 35,000-barrel-per-day hydro-skimmer built in Kingston in 1964, 100% government-owned since 2019, stands as the only operational refinery in the English-speaking Caribbean. That position alone is a strategic asset of extraordinary value. The evidence of its commercial power is already visible: exports worth over US$500 million since 2024, projected turnover of US$1.26 billion for the year ending March 2026, asphalt now flowing to Trinidad, Guyana, Barbados, and Antigua, and most symbolically, Trinidad’s Paria Fuel Trading Company purchasing 540,000 barrels of Petrojam VLSFO at a cost of approximately US$50.2 million. Trinidad, once our regional energy elder, is now buying from Jamaica. This is not a footnote. It is a geopolitical signal.

KEY FACT

A single Very Large Crude Carrier bunkering call generates US$500,000 or more in marine fuel revenue. Trump has described an armada of them heading to the US Gulf Coast  and every eastbound loaded tanker must pass near Jamaica to reach Europe, Asia, and India.

The Tanker Armada & Venezuela: A Convergence

The physics of shipping are not complicated. Tankers loading American crude at the Gulf Coast and heading east toward Europe or Asia traverse the Atlantic corridor that runs through Jamaica’s sphere of influence. Kingston is two days from the Panama Canal and four days from Miami. Every vessel in Trump’s armada, empty on the way in, loaded on the way out, represents a bunkering opportunity. Petrojam is already producing Very Low Sulphur Fuel Oil. It has re-entered the marine bunkering market. The question is not whether the product exists. It is whether Jamaica has the infrastructure and commercial velocity to convert a favourable position into a dominant one.

The Venezuelan dimension is equally critical. Petrojam was built to process Venezuelan heavy crude  its hydroskimming configuration was designed around the density, sulphur content, and viscosity of Venezuelan oil. As Venezuelan production recovers under US management, a growing supply of discounted heavy sour crude will enter the market. The Caribbean has no functioning refinery other than Petrojam capable of processing it. Jamaica should be in Washington now, negotiating a government-to-government crude supply arrangement that positions Petrojam as the designated Caribbean off-take point for US-managed Venezuelan crude. The alignment is clean: the US needs regional buyers to justify its management role; Jamaica needs discounted feedstock to make refinery upgrade economics work.

Petrojam was designed to process Venezuelan crude. That crude is returning to sanctioned markets under US management. The original partnership is available to be reborn  on entirely new and more favourable terms.

Four Decisions Jamaica Must Make in 2026

I want to be precise about what scaling Petrojam actually requires, because Jamaica has a long history of vague aspirations that have produced little action.

First: fund and contract the refinery upgrade. The Petrojam Refinery Upgrade Project, expanding from a hydroskimmer into a full-conversion 50,000 bpd facility with delayed coking, hydrotreating, and sulfur recovery, has been debated for two decades. The IDB, Caribbean Development Bank, US EXIM Bank, Development Finance Corporation, and Gulf sovereign wealth funds are all credible financing partners for a conversation that Jamaica has not yet had with urgency. That changes now, or it does not change at all.

Second: build dedicated marine bunkering infrastructure at the Kingston Outer Port Limits. Re-entering bunkering through road tanker wagons, as Petrojam previously operated, is not a competitive strategy. True hub ambition requires purpose-built bunker barges, pipeline connectivity to the harbour, and 24/7 grade-segregated operational capability. West Indies Petroleum, with its 750,000-barrel storage and new Sunoco LP partnership, is already moving faster. The government must decide whether Petrojam and WIP compete separately or collaborate under a national bunkering mandate  and it must decide now.

Third: create a Petroleum Products Free Zone within Kingston Harbour. Rotterdam is not the world’s petroleum trading hub because of its refinery. It is the hub because it built bonded storage, blending, and re-export infrastructure that made it cheaper and faster for global traders to use Rotterdam than to bypass it. Jamaica’s Logistics Hub Initiative has been claiming fourth-node ambition alongside Rotterdam, Dubai, and Singapore for years. It is time to make that specific with a regulatory and tax framework for petroleum products trading in Kingston Harbour.

Fourth: pursue a formal G2G crude supply arrangement with Washington covering Venezuelan crude under the US management framework. This is a diplomatic play, requiring the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Energy Ministry to operate with a speed and sophistication that the Jamaican government has not historically demonstrated in energy diplomacy. That must change.

The Case for Now, Not Eventually

The Zacca report recommended mothballing Petrojam’s refining operations. That report was written for a pre-Hormuz, pre-Venezuela-reintegration, pre-empty-armada world. Three tectonic shifts have occurred since: Caribbean refining competition has continued to collapse, creating a market vacuum; Venezuela has returned under a US-managed framework that is more stable and accessible to Jamaica than PetroCaribe ever was; and the Hormuz crisis has demonstrated to every energy-importing nation that geographic proximity to North American crude is not a strategic luxury, it is a necessity.

Jamaica has a window of approximately two years perhaps. In that window, it can make the investments, forge the supply agreements, and build the infrastructure that transforms Petrojam from a domestic fuel supplier into a regional energy hub. Once global refineries restructure around new routing patterns, once the window closes, the opportunity will not return in this form.

This is the cold arithmetic of geography, timing, and capital. Jamaica is, right now, in the right place, at the right time, with the right asset, facing the right market conditions, to do something that would benefit this nation for the next fifty years.

The question as it almost always is is whether we have the political will to act at the speed the opportunity demands.

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Ambraee Houslin is a Private Equity Strategist with a strong background in economics and statistics. He has extensive experience in investment banking, corporate finance, and investment research across Jamaica and the Caribbean region. His core expertise includes mergers and acquisitions, capital structuring, and executing complex transactions that drive growth and value creation. Ambraee has led and supported deals spanning strategic acquisitions, private credit facilities, and post-transaction integration strategies for high-impact sectors.