The Gov­ern­ment and bpTT will be­gin talks in mid-June on is­sues re­lat­ed to the re­struc­tur­ing of At­lantic LNG as well as an ac­cel­er­a­tion of field op­er­a­tions and ex­plo­ration.

That was among the out­comes of what Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials de­scribed as “very frank and de­tailed” talks be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and top BP of­fi­cials in Lon­don yes­ter­day.

Agree­ment for talks on At­lantic LNG and oth­er is­sues fol­lowed BP’s re­cent an­nounce­ment—on the eve of the Gov­ern­ment’s re­cent mid-year re­view—that it might not be able to sup­ply nat­ur­al gas for At­lantic LNG’s Train 1.

The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM) is­sued a state­ment yes­ter­day on the out­come of the Lon­don talks, one of the key points of Row­ley’s over­seas en­er­gy mis­sion. Ear­li­er in the week the PM’s del­e­ga­tion signed a new en­er­gy deal with Shell in Hol­land which will bring T&T an en­hanced rev­enue pack­age for the sale of LNG.

On the sec­ond stop at BP’s Lon­don head­quar­ters, the T&T del­e­ga­tion’s 90-minute meet­ing with a high-lev­el team of BP ex­ec­u­tives, in­clud­ing bpTT pres­i­dent Claire Fitz­patrick was de­scribed as “in­for­ma­tive and pro­duc­tive.”

BP’s team was led by Chief Ex­ec­u­tive, Up­stream Bernard Looney and in­clud­ed Glob­al Up­stream Re­gions at BP, William Lin, bpTT Head of Plan­ning and Com­mer­cial Fi­nance, Richard Eaton and Giselle Thomp­son, Vice-Pres­i­dent Cor­po­rate Op­er­a­tions.

The OPM said in its re­lease that the par­ties had “very frank and de­tailed con­ver­sa­tion about BP’s de­vel­op­men­tal plans for Trinidad and To­ba­go. The Prime Min­is­ter thanked BP for their co­op­er­a­tion with the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go in the en­er­gy sec­tor.”

Dis­cus­sions fo­cused on BP’s re­cent drilling pro­grammes and the fu­ture of LNG pro­duc­tion in T&T. BP al­so gave an up­date on their short and medi­um-term ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion gas pro­grammes.

The par­ties al­so reaf­firmed their com­mit­ment to the growth of the en­er­gy sec­tor, as they sched­uled the con­tin­u­a­tion of ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween em­pow­ered teams from both sides.

Ne­go­ti­a­tions are ex­pect­ed to be­gin in the mid­dle of June “in fur­ther­ance of spe­cif­ic ob­jec­tives re­lat­ing to the re­struc­tur­ing of At­lantic LNG, ac­cel­er­a­tion of field in­ves­ti­ga­tion, ex­plo­ration, pro­duc­tion as well as dis­cus­sions sur­round­ing a large num­ber of E&P li­cens­es.”

Row­ley, dur­ing a de­bate in Par­lia­ment re­cent­ly, ex­plained that ne­go­ti­at­ing teams from the oil sec­tor and the Gov­ern­ment have been meet­ing on is­sues over time. He al­so said the Gov­ern­ment had to keep an eye on the ne­go­ti­a­tions that are un­der­way for At­lantic LNG’s Train 2, 3 and 4.

At yes­ter­day’s meet­ing, BP of­fi­cials al­so up­dat­ed the Prime Min­is­ter and his del­e­ga­tion on the plat­form fab­ri­ca­tion tak­ing place at Trinidad Off­shore Fab­ri­ca­tion Com­pa­ny (TOF­CO) in La Brea.

T&T’s del­e­ga­tion in­clud­ed En­er­gy Min­is­ter Franklin Khan, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Min­is­ter in the Prime Min­is­ter’s Of­fice Stu­art Young, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Allyson West and Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny pres­i­dent Mark Lo­quan.