Prime Minister Patrick Manning is having second thoughts about the government's involvement in the supply of natural gas to islands of the Eastern Caribbean. He told a post Cabinet press conference last Thursday that the cost of the pipelines to transport the gas was high and uneconomical and was leaving it up to the private sector. Manning said two pipelines were involved, one to Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines and the other to Barbados, Martinique, St Lucia, Guadeloupe and Dominica. The Prime Minister had proposed the project some two years ago with the pipeline making landfall at the Cove Estate in Tobago from gas fields east of Trinidad and south of Tobago. At Cove the natural gas was expected to be refined and piped to the islands as well as fuelling a 200-megawatt electrical generating plant and other light industries. The Assembly has allocated $.8 million to identify the industries to be established at Cove. Up to press time on Wednesday it could not be determined whether plans to pipe the natural gas to Cove would be affected. Reprinted from thetobagonews.com