The Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries an­nounced yes­ter­day that a ne­go­ti­at­ed pro­duc­tion shar­ing con­tract (PSC) for Block NC­MA 2 was signed by the Gov­ern­ment and BP Ex­plo­ration Op­er­at­ing Com­pa­ny at the Min­istry's In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Com­plex head of­fice in Port-of-Spain.

The Min­istry ex­plained the award of this PSC stemmed from the Min­istry's shal­low-wa­ter com­pet­i­tive bid round 2023/2024, which was opened on Oc­to­ber 2, 2023 and closed on May 27, 2024.

At the sign­ing of the PSC, Min­is­ter of En­er­gy Stu­art Young said, “The Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries con­tin­ues to ag­gres­sive­ly mar­ket and ex­e­cute con­ces­sions to pro­mote ex­plo­ration and in­vest­ment in the up­stream.

"This marks the sec­ond PSC signed in record time in 2024 and the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries is com­mit­ted to work­ing with up­stream op­er­a­tors to boost the sup­ply of hy­dro­car­bons and se­cure Trinidad and To­ba­go’s en­er­gy fu­ture.”

Block NC­MA 2 is sit­u­at­ed in the North Coast Ma­rine Area (NC­MA) in wa­ter depths of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 200 me­ters. En­try in­to this block marks a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone for BPEOC, as it rep­re­sents the op­er­a­tor’s first en­deav­our in­to the North Coast re­gion.

BpTT said NC­MA 2, which is lo­cat­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly 30 miles off Trinidad’s north coast, would open a new area of ex­plo­ration for the en­er­gy multi­na­tion­al in Trinidad & To­ba­go, as all cur­rent pro­duc­tion comes from the Colum­bus Basin off Trinidad’s east coast.

In a state­ment is­sued by bpTT, the com­pa­ny's pres­i­dent David Camp­bell said: “Con­tin­ued ex­plo­ration ac­tiv­i­ty is cru­cial for sus­tain­ing our in­dus­try and I am very pleased that we have se­cured this block. The NC­MA area is new to bp in T&T and I am look­ing for­ward to max­im­s­ing its po­ten­tial. Al­though ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly new to us, we will be able to draw on our 50-plus years of ex­plo­ration ex­pe­ri­ence in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Al­so present at the sign­ing were Pene­lope Brad­shaw-Niles, per­ma­nent sec­re­tary at the Min­istry of En­er­gy; San­dra Fras­er, per­ma­nent sec­re­tary at the Min­istry of En­er­gy ; and David Camp­bell, pres­i­dent bpTT. BP Ex­plo­ration Op­er­at­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (BPEOC) and bpTT are both sub­sidiaries of BP Glob­al.