Nadaleen Singh

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine said yes­ter­day that the Gov­ern­ment has giv­en Ja­maica a com­mit­ment that T&T is will­ing to re­open talks on the pos­si­bil­i­ty of this coun­try sup­ply­ing Ja­maica with LNG. Speak­ing with re­porters af­ter the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the Trade and In­vest­ment Con­ven­tion which is be­ing held at the Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad, Ram­nar­ine said that the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion had start­ed talks with Ja­maica about the sup­ply of LNG.

"The cost of en­er­gy in Ja­maica is re­al­ly af­fect­ing the coun­try now. We take it for grant­ed in T&T we pay four to five cents per ki­lo watt. Ja­maica is ten times more. There are some res­i­dents who can't af­ford elec­tric­i­ty for their homes be­cause they can't af­ford. It doesn't hap­pen in T&T," said the En­er­gy Min­is­ter.

Ram­nar­ine said he and Trade Min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz met with Ja­maica's Min­is­ter of In­dus­try, In­vest­ment and Com­merce, An­tho­ny Hyl­ton, and gave him a com­mit­ment "that we would re-open di­a­logue with the Ja­maicans with the view of sup­ply­ing them with LNG. We have al­so gone with a re­quest for pro­pos­als for the con­struc­tion of a re-gasi­fi­ca­tion ter­mi­nal, so they are prepar­ing them­selves to re­ceive LNG.

"Mr Hyl­ton said they would need 3 mil­lion tonnes per an­num. Our LNG is sold to 21 coun­tries around the world we make 15 mil­lion. Ram­nar­ine told the re­porters that he is ex­pect­ed to meet with Guyana's Min­is­ter of Nat­ur­al Re­sources, Robert Per­saud who will be on a two-day vis­it to T&T next week.

The min­is­ters are ex­pect­ed to dis­cuss how T&T can part­ner with Guyana to de­vel­op that coun­try's en­er­gy sec­tor, Ram­nar­ine told re­porters yes­ter­day, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain. "Trinidad has to play a huge role in sup­port­ing the de­vel­op­ment of the oil in­dus­try in Guyana, sup­port­ing them in terms of ser­vices, in terms of peo­ple and so on.

"The Guyanese gov­ern­ment has al­so asked us to ap­point a T&T rep­re­sen­ta­tive to be on the pe­tro­le­um ad­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee. I have asked Petrotrin to rec­om­mend some­body to serve on that com­mit­tee. "They need some­one who is a ge­ol­o­gist or geo­physi­cist to help them."

Asked what type of ser­vices can T&T pro­vide he said: "We have like ce­ment­ing ser­vices, we have weld­ing ser­vices, we have labour sup­ply. We can al­so pro­vide them with a lot of ma­te­ri­als that they need. For ex­am­ple right now we are coat­ing pipe for the Venezue­lans ... it is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for T&T."