The master gas plan received by the Energy Ministry on Monday, contains recommendations on natural gas supply, transfer pricing, royalty gas and a gas allocation policy, Energy Minister Nicole Olivierre said yesterday.
In her contribution to the 2017 Budget debate in Parliament, Olivierre confirmed the plan was received. This was after Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar on Thursday had queried its whereabouts.
The plan provides the framework under which all natural gas sector issues will be addressed.
"The Energy Standing Committee engaged a special sub-committee to review the recommendations of the plan developed by Poten and Partners. The team deliberated for several weeks and held consultations with all natural gas sector stakeholders," Olivierre said.
"On Monday, the sub-committee's chairman presented me with a comprehensive report with clear recommendations that Government may wish to pursue as priority measures."
Other areas the plan covers include cross-border gas supplies, the role of the National Gas Company (NGC) and LNG contract renewal. The minister will take the report to the next meeting of the Energy Standing Committee for approval.
Once approved for implementation, more information will be provided to Parliament, she said.
Olivierre said consultations with all stakeholders took place in August on the Plan as well as energy sector policy.
She said the prognosis was for fairly stable gas prices in the near future up to US$)2.87MMBTU in 2017. However, the results of the natural gas reserves audit, which was just received, has shown a 0.9 TCF decrease in proven reserves which now stand at 10.6 TCF.
Risked probable and possible reserves, as well as exploration potential, are also reduced.
"This low reserves replacement ration of 34 per cent is clearly not sustainable. But several operators are doing work that can have a positive impact on this," Olivierre said.
She added the ministry had also engaged in reclaiming acerage from operators who did not fulfil their mandatory work programmes.
"We're in the process of reclaiming acreage from one operator and the reclaimed blocks will eventually be offered for exploration to the industry," she said.
Olivierre said Petrotrin had been mandated to arrest crude oil production decline, including by seeking new commercial partnerships to develop Trinmar's assets.
An international consultant will be engaged to advise on a partner for the entire Trinmar acerage.
Based on various strategies in Petrotrin's five-year business plan, crude oil production is expected to remain "fairly stable around 44,538 barrels in 2017, projected to increase to 59,472 by 2020."
Detailing drilling/exploration by various companies, Oliviere said a Shallow Water Competitive Bid Round is being considered for the first quarter of 2017 and an Onshore Competitive Bid Round may be considered in the "near future once the market recovers."
Olivierre said the reactivated T&T-Ghana investment agreement will allow this country to own "a tangible actual real piece of physical infrastructure in Ghana for transmission of natural gas for power generation. This will earn valuable foreign exchange and help diversify state enterprise revenue base."
The Supplemental Petroleum Tax is being addressed to deal with current disincentives to small and medium operators and to encourage production of "stranded" oil and gas on land and offshore.
She added that there had been significant progress on longstanding Loran Manatee negotiations. A final draft understanding of agreement (UOA) was received in response to a September 20 deadline given by the Ministry and the agreement is being reviewed.
"By year end we'll be so much closer to seeing that cross border arriving in a pipeline in T&T," Olivierre said.
