PETER CHRISTOPHER
Senior Multimedia Reporter
peter.christopher@guardian.co.tt
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley said yesterday the recently signed natural gas agreements between T&T and Venezuela are a major step in maintaining the quality of life in T&T.
On Wednesday, Venezuela granted a 20-year natural gas production and exploration deal for the cross-border Cocuina gas field to bpTT and wholly state-owned National Gas Company.
This follows agreements for the development of the Dragon and Manatee natural gas fields.
In December 2023, Venezuelan granted a licence for the exploration, production and export of gas from the Dragon field, which is located within the country’s maritime boundary.
On July 9, 2024, Shell took a final investment decision for the development of the Manatee field, located in the East Coast Marine Area.
At the post-Cabinet news conference at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s yesterday, the Prime Minister explained that securing these deals, and extracting gas as a result, were crucial to ensuring T&T’s power generation and important energy sector industries remained in operation for years to come.
“Those two industrial activities are the major contributors to the revenue generation of Trinidad and Tobago, the Point Lisas industries and the LNG complex. Without them, we would be in real trouble. The quality of life that we have become accustomed to would not be available to us. Notwithstanding that we spend three quarters of our time bad talking ourselves, we do enjoy a significantly improved and worthy quality of life, that is funded from the hydrocarbon sector, which is where our revenue comes from mainly,” said Rowley.
He stressed that as a mature oil and gas province, the country’s reserves had been drained to the point where, when he came into office in 2015, only an estimated 10 to 12 years of gas reserves remained. The Prime Minister said while some might have said this would have only spelt the end of the energy sector in the country, he stressed it would have also adversely affected T&TEC’s operations.
“If we only have gas for 10 years, we can’t use up all the gas and get to year 10 and say okay we have no gas at all. That would mean the gas supply to T&TEC is in the same position.
“We want to make sure that we do have gas—even beyond the life of the Point Lisas Industrial Estate—to generate electricity, because we are one of the few countries in the world where 100 per cent of our electricity is generated from natural gas. So the first call on whatever gas we have left is for our electricity supply. And then what we keep, we keep exporting gas through our producing arrangements on the coast,” said the Prime Minister.
According to a release issued after the signing yesterday, 25 per cent of production from the Cocuina gas field will supply Trinidad’s petrochemical sector, while the balance will feed the T&T’s LNG industry.
The Prime Minister said the deal would also benefit local company TOFCO, which is expected to provide platforms for use in the Dragon, Loran Manatee and Cocuina fields.