The En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) has is­sued a Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance to EOG Re­sources for off­shore ex­plo­ration of two gas wells, TG1 and TG2, with­in the NC­MA 4(a) Un­lim­it­ed Block off the North Coast of Trinidad.

The ap­proval is the first CEC is­sued un­der the cur­rent Board of Di­rec­tors for the Oil and Gas sec­tor. Chair­man Doolar Ram­lal said the cer­tifi­cate was is­sued with­in the statu­to­ry time­frame and re­flect­ed the Au­thor­i­ty’s ap­proach to reg­u­la­to­ry de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

Chair­man Ram­lal said the Board sup­ports the vi­sion of the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter to ad­vance sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment while main­tain­ing reg­u­la­to­ry process­es and en­vi­ron­men­tal stan­dards. He said the Au­thor­i­ty con­tin­ues to process ap­pli­ca­tions in ac­cor­dance with the law.

The ap­pli­ca­tion for the CEC was sub­mit­ted to the EMA on March 5, 2025. The re­view process in­clud­ed re­quests for fur­ther in­for­ma­tion and clar­i­fi­ca­tion, along with a tech­ni­cal as­sess­ment of the pro­posed drilling ac­tiv­i­ty.

The EMA said its as­sess­ment con­sid­ered stake­hold­er en­gage­ment car­ried out by EOG and mat­ters raised di­rect­ly with the Au­thor­i­ty. The re­view al­so ex­am­ined project doc­u­men­ta­tion, in­clud­ing ac­tiv­i­ty de­scrip­tions, sched­ules, maps, ves­sel in­for­ma­tion, and sup­port op­er­a­tions.

Oth­er el­e­ments as­sessed in­clud­ed hy­dro­car­bon spill and drill cut­tings dis­per­sion mod­el­ling based on off­shore projects, and an Emer­gency Re­sponse Plan ad­dress­ing ac­ci­dents, nat­ur­al events, and haz­ards. The Au­thor­i­ty al­so re­viewed base­line in­for­ma­tion on the phys­i­cal, bi­o­log­i­cal, and so­cio-cul­tur­al en­vi­ron­ment.

A con­cep­tu­al Waste Man­age­ment Plan was as­sessed, along with po­ten­tial im­pacts re­lat­ed to noise, air emis­sions, ma­rine dis­charges, and ves­sel traf­fic.

Fol­low­ing its re­view, the EMA de­ter­mined that the in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed was suf­fi­cient and that an En­vi­ron­men­tal Im­pact As­sess­ment was not re­quired for the pro­posed ac­tiv­i­ty.

The EMA said it re­mains com­mit­ted to en­vi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment, ef­fi­cien­cy, and trans­paren­cy while en­sur­ing that reg­u­la­to­ry stan­dards are up­held in sup­port of na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment and en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go.