Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Franklin Khan has an­nounced that the gov­ern­ment has fi­nalised ne­go­ti­a­tions with Shell Trinidad and To­ba­go Lim­it­ed on gas-re­lat­ed is­sues.

In April 2018, a team led by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley held high-lev­el dis­cus­sions with the ex­ec­u­tive man­age­ment of Shell in Lon­don on gas-re­lat­ed is­sues.

The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM) says the dis­cus­sions led to the ap­point­ment of em­pow­ered ne­go­ti­at­ing teams to re­solve these is­sues

The teams had their first meet­ing in Au­gust 2018, and fol­low­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions, a heads of Agree­ment was agreed to and ex­e­cut­ed on May 29, 2019 by Gov­ern­ment and Shell at Shell’s Head Of­fice in the Hague, Nether­lands.

The Government and Shell have finalised an agreement on gas-related issues. Photo courtesy the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries.

Un­der the terms of the Heads of Agree­ment, the agree­ment reached be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and Shell comes in­to ef­fect on the fi­nal­i­sa­tion and ex­e­cu­tion of the de­fin­i­tive agree­ments on the var­i­ous gas re­lat­ed is­sues.

The de­fin­i­tive agree­ments among the Gov­ern­ment, Shell, the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go Lim­it­ed and the Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed were fi­nalised and ex­e­cut­ed in a sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny to­day at the Of­fice of the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries, Tow­er C, In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Cen­tre, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain.

The OPM says the out­come of ne­go­ti­a­tions has re­sult­ed in im­proved eco­nom­ic and fi­nan­cial ben­e­fits to the coun­try and is a vin­di­ca­tion of the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion, as ar­tic­u­lat­ed in the ‘Spot­light on En­er­gy’, to pur­sue im­proved re­turns from the ex­ploita­tion of the coun­try’s hy­dro­car­bon re­sources.

The Government and Shell have finalised an agreement on gas-related issues. Photo courtesy the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries.

It says there has al­so been a ce­ment­ing of the pos­i­tive re­la­tion­ship be­tween Gov­ern­ment and Shell, which will re­dound to the ben­e­fit of both par­ties and by ex­ten­sion to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The Gov­ern­ment-em­pow­ered ne­go­ti­at­ing team was led by Min­is­ters Khan and Stu­art Young, and in­clud­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Poten and Part­ners UK Ltd, US At­tor­neys White and Case LLP and tech­ni­cal ad­vis­ers.