Citing the potential for competitive disadvantage, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley said yesterday he is not prepared to go into the "dollars and cents details" of the contracts that resulted from the restructuring of the ownership of Atlantic LNG and the adjustment of the benchmark arrangements for the sale of liquified natural gas from the Point Fortin facility.
"I am not going to go into the innards of those contracts. We don't do that."
The Prime Minister was responding to questions on the new LNG arrangements at a news conference yesterday at the Diplomatic Centre in St Anns.
Among the questions he was asked: when was the agreement signed; details of the new ownership structure of Atlantic LNG, details of the new pricing formula; the length of the new agreement and how many billions in revenue does the Government expect to derive from the agreement.
"Suffice it to say that the formula, as a mathematical entity, would show you that it would be an improvement. How much in exact dollars, I can't tell you that," said the Prime Minister.
Young said the new pricing formula for LNG from the liquefaction facility in Point Fortin would be based on a Japan/Korea benchmark, a UK/Holland benchmark and a discount to Brent.
He also said the new arrangements would start in October 2024 and would last for 25 years.
Earlier in the news conference, Dr Rowley recalled that at the Spotlight on Energy forum in March 2018, the Government had indicated that it would seek to renegotiate better terms and conditions for the people of T&T from the monetising of local natural gas.
He said the total revenue arising out of the Government's approach to revisit the arrangements for earnings from the domestic gas sector was a total of $11 billion (US$1.6 billion).
That included US$900 million the Government collected as a result of the changes in the natural gas pricing arrangements from from August 2018 to September 2023. Secondly, the Prime Minister said T&T earned an additional US$407 million between October 2018 and Augustas a result of the introduction of a 12.5 per cent royalty on the extraction of all gas, condensate and oil.
And he said the Government would have lost US$308 million if it had not stood its ground in negotiating new natural gas supply agreements with companies on the Point Lisas Industrial Estate.
Hours after the Government news conference, Leader of the Opposition, Kamla Persad-Bissessar issued a news release criticising the Prime Minister's inability to provide actual evidence-based answers to most of the questions posed to him.
"His inability to respond to probing questions is frightening as we recall that he and Minister Young were previously outsmarted at gas price negotiations in Houston. The Prime Minister cannot hide behind assertions of confidentiality agreements," said Persad-Bissessar.