State-owned Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of T&T Lim­it­ed (NGC) has suf­fered a $3.9 bil­lion de­cline in prof­it for the year end­ed De­cem­ber 31, 2015. A sum­ma­ry of the com­pa­ny's con­sol­i­dat­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments show a prof­it of the year of $561 mil­lion, con­sid­er­ably than the prof­it of $4.5 bil­lion for 2014.

Chair­man Ger­ry Brooks said the com­pa­ny's per­for­mance was af­fect­ed by the de­cline in en­er­gy prices with am­mo­nia and methanol drop­ping by 18 per cent and 30 per cent re­spec­tive­ly, while oil and gas prices de­clined by 40 per cent. As a re­sult, he said, rev­enues and gross prof­it de­clined by 29 per cent and 46 per cent re­spec­tive­ly to $16.6 bil­lion and $4.6 bil­lion.

"The de­cline in oil and gas prices im­pact­ed the re­cov­er­abil­i­ty of the com­pa­ny's in­vest­ment in Block 2C and Block 3A as­sets which led to an im­pair­ment loss be­ing recog­nised in the amount of $1.3 bil­lion. This loss is non cash and may be re­versed with the im­prove­ment in prices," Brooks said.

In his re­port to share­hold­ers, the chair­man said af­ter care­ful re­view NGC ter­mi­nat­ed the Beetham Waste­water Reuse Project and an im­pair­ment of $943.7 mil­lion, the to­tal cost of the project, was in­curred.

"This mat­ter is be­ing vig­or­ous­ly pur­sued legal­ly," he said.

Brooks said a 2016-2020 Strate­gic Plan is in fi­nal stages of de­vel­op­ment and is ex­pect­ed to be rolled out in the third quar­ter of this year. He added that NGC is be­ing re-en­gi­neered to "nav­i­gate and suc­ceed in this new, more com­plex en­vi­ron­ment."