The Cab­i­net ap­proved the award of three deep­wa­ter blocks to a con­sor­tium com­pris­ing bpTT and Shell.

In a news re­lease yes­ter­day, the Min­istry of En­er­gy said the de­ci­sion was tak­en by the Cab­i­net on Sep­tem­ber 8 and the award cer­e­mo­ny will take place next week on Tues­day with the par­ties sign­ing the ma­te­r­i­al Pro­duc­tion Shar­ing Con­tracts (PSCs).

The Min­istry and the con­sor­tium have been en­gaged in com­plex ne­go­ti­a­tions over the terms and con­di­tions of the PSCs hav­ing re­gard to, in­ter alia, the fact that the blocks to be award­ed are lo­cat­ed in deep wa­ter and re­quired dif­fer­ent and nov­el con­sid­er­a­tions due to the na­ture of the ex­pect­ed ex­plo­ration and pos­si­ble fu­ture pro­duc­tion.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young ex­pressed his plea­sure at the fact that these blocks will be award­ed and what it means for Trinidad and To­ba­go as the deep wa­ter is a new fron­tier in this coun­try’s hy­dro­car­bon de­vel­op­ment.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of En­er­gy’s web­site, the 2021 Deep Wa­ter Com­pet­i­tive Bid Round was launched on De­cem­ber 3, 2021, and re­mained open for a pe­ri­od of six months.

The bid round was of­fi­cial­ly closed at noon on June 2, 2022, and con­tained 17 off­shore deep­wa­ter blocks, name­ly: Blocks 23 (b), 24, 25 (a), 25 (b), 26, 27, TTDAA 1, TTDAA2, TTDAA 4, TTDAA 8, TTDAA 9, TTDAA 11, TTDAA 15, TTDAA 25, TTDAA 26, TTDAA 28 and TTDAA 29, lo­cat­ed off the north­ern and east­ern coasts of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In to­tal, four bids were re­ceived for the deep­wa­ter blocks from a con­sor­tium com­pris­ing two com­pa­nies, BP Ex­plo­ration Op­er­at­ing Com­pa­ny and BG In­ter­na­tion­al (Shell).

The bids re­ceived were:

• Block 23(b)—BP Ex­plo­ration Op­er­at­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed/BG In­ter­na­tion­al

• Block 25(a)—BP Ex­plo­ration Op­er­at­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed/BG In­ter­na­tion­al

• Block 25(b)—BP Ex­plo­ration Op­er­at­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed/BG In­ter­na­tion­al

• Block 27—BG In­ter­na­tion­al Lim­it­ed/BP Ex­plo­ration Op­er­at­ing Com­pa­ny

In out­lin­ing the sta­tus of the bid round in 2022, the Min­istry of En­er­gy said: “Fol­low­ing the clo­sure of the 2021 Deep Wa­ter Com­pet­i­tive Bid Round on June 2, 2022, the bids were eval­u­at­ed, rec­om­men­da­tions were sent to the Cab­i­net and a de­ci­sion was made to en­ter in­to ne­go­ti­a­tions with the bid­ders—BP Ex­plo­ration Op­er­at­ing Com­pa­ny and BG In­ter­na­tion­al (Shell).”