Trinidad and To­ba­go’s en­er­gy sec­tor faces an­oth­er dif­fi­cult year be­fore a po­ten­tial­ly sig­nif­i­cant re­cov­ery in nat­ur­al gas sup­ply from 2027, en­er­gy econ­o­mist and­busi­ness strat­e­gy con­sul­tant Gre­go­ry McGuire told Busi­ness Guardian on Tues­day.

“You stand­ing in the book­store look­ing at one text­book for over $2oo, and you know you still have to buy gro­ceries, light bill to pay, and rent com­ing due,” shared one weary par­ent.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s net of­fi­cial for­eign re­serves to­talled US$5.747 bil­lion at the end of Ju­ly, the high­est lev­el in more two years, ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion in the Cen­tral Bank’s Da­ta Cen­tre. The last time the coun­try’s for­eign re­serves ex­ceed­ed the Ju­ly num­ber was in June 2024, when the re­serves amount­ed to US$5.983 bil­lion.

Chair­man of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny Ger­ald Ramdeen yes­ter­day said ne­go­ti­a­tions with Shell are on­go­ing amid in­ter­na­tion­al re­ports that sug­gest Shell’s Aphrodite nat­ur­al gas project in Trinidad and To­ba­go is in doubt.

In­ter­na­tion­al cred­it rat­ing agency S&P Glob­al has reaf­firmed the rat­ings of the First Cit­i­zens Bank Ltd (FCBL) at bbb.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Mort­gage Bank (TTMB) has re­port­ed prof­it af­ter tax of $81 mil­lion for the six-month pe­ri­od end­ed June 30, 2026.

T&T may not reap the eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits ex­pect­ed from the re­cent­ly ne­go­ti­at­ed Venezue­lan nat­ur­al gas agree­ments, as the com­mer­cial in­cen­tives of­fered to Shell and BP could ul­ti­mate­ly en­cour­age the com­pa­nies to di­rect gas to­wards lu­cra­tive Eu­ro­pean and Asian LNG mar­kets, rather than the coun­try’s strug­gling petro­chem­i­cal sec­tor.

A grow­ing gov­er­nance con­tro­ver­sy at Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT) has placed the ma­jor­i­ty state-owned com­pa­ny un­der in­tense scruti­ny, over­shad­ow­ing its strongest fi­nan­cial per­for­mance in 17 years.

Chair­man of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NGC) Ger­ald Ramdeen is promis­ing even greater re­turns in the com­ing year, as the com­pa­ny an­nounced its high­est prof­it af­ter tax in more than a decade in 2025.

The Gov­ern­ment re­mains locked in ac­tive, high-lev­el dis­cus­sions with Nu­trien, one of the world's largest pro­duc­ers of ni­tro­gen-based fer­tilis­ers, and Methanex, the world's largest pro­duc­er and sup­pli­er of methanol, as it seeks to se­cure fu­ture in­vest­ment in T&T's en­er­gy sec­tor.

Gov­ern­ment ex­pects an­oth­er dif­fi­cult year ahead as it con­tin­ues to as­sess the full ex­tent of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s fi­nan­cial oblig­a­tions while try­ing to cre­ate room for eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery.

The fu­ture of Methanex Corp’s Trinidad op­er­a­tions has gone fur­ther in­to lim­bo af­ter the com­pa­ny re­port­ed load­ing its fi­nal methanol car­go aboard the Lumphi­ni Park ves­sel on Mon­day, Au­gust 17.