For the past decade, de­clin­ing oil and gas pro­duc­tion has been a key eco­nom­ic chal­lenge for T&T. Re­vers­ing this trend re­quires in­creased up­stream in­vest­ment, which is cur­rent­ly un­der­way. Sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ments are be­ing made in the up­stream oil and gas sec­tor, as well as in re­new­able en­er­gy.

A map pre­sent­ed at the re­cent Trinidad & To­ba­go En­er­gy Con­fer­ence gen­er­at­ed sub­stan­tial in­ter­est, show­cas­ing var­i­ous projects cat­e­go­rized by their stage of de­vel­op­ment.

Projects in ex­e­cu­tion (yel­low) in­clude the Man­a­tee, Cypre, Men­to, and Co­conut oil and gas projects, along with the grid-scale so­lar project in Brechin Cas­tle. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, sev­er­al in­fill drilling cam­paigns—both on­shore and off­shore—are ei­ther on­go­ing or planned.

Projects ad­vanc­ing to­ward a fi­nal in­vest­ment de­ci­sion (ma­gen­ta) in­clude Ca­lyp­so, Gin­ger, Black­jack, and Onyx in Trinidad & To­ba­go, as well as the cross-bor­der Man­akin-Cocuina field and Venezuela’s Drag­on field. Since the con­fer­ence, bp has al­so an­nounced that it is work­ing to­ward a fi­nal in­vest­ment de­ci­sion for the Kanikon­na project in the South­east Ga­le­o­ta Block. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, two green hy­dro­gen projects are un­der eval­u­a­tion.

Be­yond these projects, there is sig­nif­i­cant ex­plo­ration ac­tiv­i­ty. Planned ex­plo­ration drilling, seis­mic da­ta col­lec­tion, and analy­sis are on­go­ing. A wind da­ta col­lec­tion ini­tia­tive us­ing LI­DAR tech­nol­o­gy is al­so in progress at Ga­le­o­ta and Wa­ter­loo—an es­sen­tial pre­req­ui­site for fu­ture wind pow­er in­vest­ments.

A deep­wa­ter bid round is cur­rent­ly un­der­way, with hopes that com­pa­nies will se­cure acreage and ini­ti­ate fu­ture ex­plo­ration pro­grammes in these ar­eas.

The eco­nom­ic fu­ture of Trinidad & To­ba­go de­pends on a con­tin­u­ous pipeline of oil, gas, and re­new­able en­er­gy projects in ex­e­cu­tion, plan­ning, and ex­plo­ration. Stake­hold­ers in­vest­ed in the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic growth should close­ly mon­i­tor the progress of these ini­tia­tives.