T&T is us­ing an in­creas­ing pro­por­tion of its to­tal nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion to gen­er­ate elec­tric­i­ty. The per­cent­age of to­tal nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion used in the pro­duc­tion of elec­tric­i­ty in­creased from 7.1 per cent in 2018 to 11.2 per cent in the first eight months of 2024.

This is be­cause con­sumers are us­ing more elec­tric­i­ty, while nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion has been de­clin­ing. The biggest in­crease in elec­tric­i­ty con­sump­tion has been in the high­est cat­e­go­ry of users in the res­i­den­tial sec­tor.

This has a di­rect im­pact on the avail­abil­i­ty of for­eign ex­change, be­cause less of our valu­able nat­ur­al gas re­sources are avail­able to the coun­try’s for­eign ex­change gen­er­at­ing petro­chem­i­cal and LNG sec­tors. It al­so means low­er gov­ern­ment rev­enue, through both tax­a­tion and the prof­its from the NGC.

In­vest­ing in re­new­able en­er­gy and im­ple­ment­ing en­er­gy con­ser­va­tion and en­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy pro­grammes would re­duce the vol­ume of nat­ur­al gas be­ing used in elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion.