Joel Julien

joel.julien@guardian.co.tt

En­er­gy gi­ant bpTT has been giv­en a 10-year ex­ten­sion on 92 of its ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion li­cences in the Colum­bus Basin.

And as a re­sult of this, the State is ex­pect­ed to reap a fi­nan­cial ben­e­fit of US$250 mil­lion over the next four years.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Franklin Khan yes­ter­day an­nounced the Li­cence Ex­ten­sion Agree­ment among the gov­ern­ment, bpTT, and Co-Li­cencees, EOG Re­sources, Peren­co and its Co-Li­cencees, the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny and Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um.

The li­cence ex­ten­sions are for the to Teak, Samaan and Poui Ex­plo­ration and Pro­duc­tion li­cences and with bpTT on its East Ma­yaro Ex­plo­ration and Pro­duc­tion Li­cence.

The sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny took place at the En­er­gy Min­istry’s of­fice lo­cat­ed at, Tow­er C, of the In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Cen­tre, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain.

“The agree­ment be­tween the par­ties rep­re­sents the out­come of con­tin­u­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions on gas re­lat­ed is­sues,” a re­lease from the En­er­gy Min­istry stat­ed yes­ter­day.

“The first phase which was com­plet­ed in De­cem­ber 2018 re­sult­ed in a ten-year ex­ten­sion of bpTT’s South East Ga­le­o­ta Li­cence and fi­nan­cial ben­e­fit to the State in the sum of $1.0 bil­lion for set­tle­ment of lega­cy is­sues. Un­der the terms of this agree­ment, 91 Teak, Samaan and Poui li­cences and the East Ma­yaro Li­cence have each been ex­tend­ed for a pe­ri­od of ten years,” it stat­ed.

The En­er­gy Min­istry said that fur­ther dis­cus­sions have been sched­uled be­tween the par­ties to bring the li­cences up to date with the mod­ern ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion li­cences.

“The State will ben­e­fit from in­cre­men­tal val­ue es­ti­mat­ed at US$250 mil­lion rel­a­tive to the pe­ri­od up to Sep­tem­ber 2024,” it stat­ed.

“The af­fir­ma­tive ac­tion tak­en by the Gov­ern­ment in en­gag­ing up­stream pro­duc­ers has been mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial. Gov­ern­ment’s proac­tive ap­proach has placed the sec­tor on a more sol­id and sus­tain­able foot­ing. Gov­ern­ment poli­cies have al­so en­abled the coun­try to de­rive a greater share of rev­enue from the mon­e­ti­za­tion of the coun­try’s hy­dro­car­bon re­sources. These out­comes are tes­ti­mo­ny to the ef­fec­tive­ness of the Gov­ern­ment’s en­er­gy poli­cies and the pos­i­tive col­lab­o­ra­tion with up­stream stake­hold­ers,” the En­er­gy Min­istry stat­ed.

Pres­i­dent of bpTT Clair Fitz­patrick said, “our abil­i­ty to reach an agree­ment on these terms demon­strates the strength of our re­la­tion­ship with the Gov­ern­ment and pro­vides mu­tu­al ad­van­tage for all par­ties.”

“We main­tain our con­fi­dence in the long-term fu­ture of the Colum­bus Basin and this agree­ment un­der­pins the con­tin­ued max­imi­sa­tion of re­cov­ery of re­sources in our ex­ist­ing acreage,” Fitz­patrick stat­ed.