Sean Nero

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine says new oil finds in T&T wa­ters re­main cru­cial to­wards gen­er­at­ing rev­enue to fa­cil­i­tate gov­ern­ment's fis­cal pro­grammes. This at Thurs­day's com­mis­sion­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the first well, SE-1, to be drilled by Soogl An­tilles (Trinidad) Ltd, held at the Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad Ho­tel, lo­cat­ed on Dock Road, Port-of-Spain. Ram­nar­ine said the com­pa­ny was bring­ing to lo­cal shores a sim­i­lar stan­dard of ex­cel­lence prac­ticed by its Chi­nese par­ent com­pa­ny, Sinopec In­ter­na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Cor­po­ra­tion, a sub­sidiary of the Sinopec Group.

"We recog­nise that oil pro­duc­tion in T&T is key to our de­vel­op­ment. We have to in­crease oil pro­duc­tion as soon as pos­si­ble if we are to im­pact on what Gov­ern­ment is do­ing. We en­cour­age you to stamp your pres­ence in this coun­try. We have a deep­wa­ter bid round com­ing up in No­vem­ber, and there is a shal­low wa­ter round com­ing up next March. We look for­ward to your in­ter­est and par­tic­i­pa­tion in those bid rounds," Ram­nar­ine said. He praised Sinopec for recog­nis­ing and util­is­ing the many ser­vices of lo­cal com­pa­nies that were world- class, but more im­por­tant­ly, owned and man­aged by T&T na­tion­als.

Zhan Qi, chair­man, Sinopec In­ter­na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Cor­po­ra­tion, said his com­pa­ny was de­light­ed that af­ter more than six months of hard work, it could cel­e­brate the spud cer­e­mo­ny of ex­plo­ration well SE-1 of Soogl An­tilles (Trinidad) Ltd. He ex­pressed hope that Soogl An­tilles could keep up this mo­men­tum to se­cure more wins and to bring a more pros­per­ous to­mor­row for the group.