Energy Minister Stuart Young says he’s not surprised that by the poor response to the 2022 T&T deep-water bid round with only four of the 17 blocks taken.
Speaking to members of the media at the Hyatt Regency where the closing took place yesterday Young said,” As I said on the outset when we were going out for this bid round, I never expected there to be a lot of external interest because the way the global energy sector is set up now, that a lot of these multinational companies have actually been forced by their shareholders to take decisions that you cannot invest in new provinces.”
He emphasised that the matter needs to be seen in that context.
But the minister said the fact that four of the blocks were actually taken up by a consortium of bpTT and Shell “is a great positive” for the country.
“So, there’s nothing surprising there,” Young added.
Additionally, he said this bid round means that a lot of capital will be placed to develop the deep-water, noting that the next bid round to come will be the onshore bid round.
“And there’s going to be a lot more interest there because onshore is a lot cheaper to explore and produce,” Young said.
On why the ministry therefore, opted to go for deep-water bid rounds first as opposed to onshore Young said the deep-water is the province which needs the interest for exploration.
“You’re looking at a longer point in time. We already have a lot of onshore and shallow water. I think the last one that was done a few years ago was a shallow water. Unfortunately, that didn’t go so well. We wanted to see what would come out of the deep-water,” Young added.
On the consortium between bp and Shell for the deep-water bid rounds the Energy Minister said this was positive, noting that these entities are the main shareholders of Atlantic LNG.
“So the fact that both of them are going into the deep-water it makes economic sense because the type of infrastructure; it is a virgin territory. The type of infrastructure that needs to put down there it is better for Trinidad and Tobago with both of them going together. They are going to share the cost together,” Young added.
