KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal says the door re­mains open for Methanex to re­sume op­er­a­tions, even af­ter the com­pa­ny moved to in­def­i­nite­ly idle its Ti­tan methanol plant fol­low­ing the break­down of talks on a new nat­ur­al gas sup­ply agree­ment.

Mooni­lal said ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween Methanex and the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) over gas pric­ing and al­lo­ca­tion had failed to pro­duce an agree­ment. How­ev­er, he not­ed that the com­pa­ny’s de­ci­sion to pre­serve the Point Lisas fa­cil­i­ty in a “restart-ready” con­di­tion left room for fu­ture op­er­a­tions if gas sup­ply con­di­tions im­prove.

Speak­ing to re­porters out­side the Susamachar Pres­by­ter­ian Church in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, Mooni­lal said the Gov­ern­ment had tak­en note of Methanex’s an­nounce­ment and would con­tin­ue en­gag­ing the com­pa­ny, along­side oth­er down­stream op­er­a­tors, as it works to strength­en nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion.

Mooni­lal de­scribed Methanex as a glob­al op­er­a­tor whose de­ci­sion formed part of a broad­er in­ter­na­tion­al port­fo­lio re­view.

“This de­ci­sion they have tak­en is pur­suant to their glob­al busi­ness mod­el to look at the com­mer­cial vi­a­bil­i­ty of pro­duc­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

He said dis­cus­sions on gas sup­ply con­di­tions had been on­go­ing for some time but had not re­sult­ed in an agree­ment.

“For some time now, they have been en­gaged with the NGC in di­a­logue con­cern­ing gas pric­ing and gas al­lo­ca­tion and so on. Re­gret­tably, we are at a stage where there could be no agree­ment at this time, but I’m very con­fi­dent that as we go for­ward, the de­ci­sion of Methanex to pre­serve and idle their plant keeps the door open for a restart-ready sit­u­a­tion where they may be able to restart in the short term.”

The min­is­ter said the Gov­ern­ment ex­pect­ed up­com­ing gas projects to im­prove sup­ply con­di­tions and strength­en fu­ture ne­go­ti­a­tions with down­stream op­er­a­tors.

“We have sev­er­al projects that will mean an in­crease in gas sup­ply and ex­pan­sion in pro­duc­tion, and that will have an im­pact up­on ne­go­ti­a­tions with the down­stream op­er­a­tors, and we are hop­ing that at some time very soon we can be dis­cussing with Methanex and with oth­er play­ers as well as gas pro­duc­tion in­creas­es the abil­i­ty to restart.”

Mooni­lal al­so not­ed that the NGC had suc­cess­ful­ly con­clud­ed gas ne­go­ti­a­tions with more than a dozen down­stream op­er­a­tors, al­though dis­cus­sions with Methanex broke down over the terms of ex­tend­ing its agree­ment.

“In this case, there were some is­sues over an ex­ten­sion of the agree­ment and the con­di­tions of that ex­ten­sion, and we are where we are. But it is not some­thing where we have closed the door at all be­cause, as I said, the restart-ready sit­u­a­tion sug­gests that there is con­fi­dence in the en­er­gy po­ten­tial of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

He said dis­cus­sions with Methanex and oth­er stake­hold­ers would con­tin­ue as con­di­tions in the en­er­gy sec­tor evolve.