An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@

guardian.co.tt

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal says he has tak­en note of Guyana Vice Pres­i­dent Dr Bhar­rat Jagdeo’s state­ment that his coun­try does not have gas to sup­ply to any­one, but that he is will­ing to meet with the T&T Gov­ern­ment on pos­si­ble fu­ture arrange­ments.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, Mooni­lal said, “Cer­tain­ly, Jagdeo’s in­vi­ta­tion to have dis­cus­sions on any role for T&T will be con­sid­ered in the in­ter­est of the peo­ple of Guyana and this coun­try. The role of the pri­vate sec­tor arrange­ments in that con­text is not­ed for short-term con­sul­ta­tions. I can con­firm that I al­ready dis­patched, in my first week on the job, cor­re­spon­dence to my coun­ter­part in Guyana on our ea­ger­ness to dis­cuss bi­lat­er­al co­op­er­a­tion on all en­er­gy-re­lat­ed mat­ters.”

Ad­dress­ing pos­si­ble en­er­gy col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween Guyana and T&T last week, Jagdeo said be­fore T&T’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion last month, he had in­di­cat­ed there was not enough gas to sup­ply both coun­tries.

“We need all of the gas there for our elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion and the fer­tilis­er plant. There is a project that we have not ap­proved as yet that is be­ing ex­plored be­tween Ful­crum LNG and Exxon­Mo­bil, and the gov­ern­ment of Guyana to de­vel­op the gas re­serves. They’re ex­plor­ing sev­er­al op­tions as to what to do with this gas. ... I said if T&T is in­ter­est­ed, then the tri­par­tite arrange­ment, Exxon­Mo­bil, Ful­crum LNG, and the gov­ern­ment of Guyana would have to ex­am­ine whether tak­ing the gas to T&T out­weighs those oth­er op­tions in terms of fi­nan­cial fea­si­bil­i­ty,” Jagdeo dis­closed.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar last week in­struct­ed Mooni­lal to seek out new sources of oil and gas for the coun­try from Grena­da, Guyana, and Suri­name.

Mean­while, en­er­gy ex­pert An­tho­ny Paul said this coun­try needs to work with diplo­ma­cy with Guyana, in or­der to get a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of their gas sit­u­a­tion.

Paul said Guyana should al­so use T&T’s ex­pe­ri­ence to come up with the right tech­ni­cal and com­mer­cial so­lu­tion. He not­ed that it is im­por­tant to un­der­stand the state of Guyana re­sources to get long-term ac­cess to them.

An­oth­er en­er­gy ex­pert, Dr Kr­ish­na Per­sad, re­spond­ing to Jagdeo’s com­ments, said Guyana has to look af­ter its in­ter­ests, as does T&T, and Guyana.

Per­sad said the Guyana gov­ern­ment wants to build a gas-based in­dus­try in that coun­try with the gas that is com­ing on­shore via the pipeline built by Exxon­Mo­bil. How­ev­er, he said Jagdeo’s in­di­ca­tion that he’s will­ing to talk with the T&T Gov­ern­ment was a good sign.

Giv­ing his sug­ges­tion to Gov­ern­ment, Per­sad T&T should use its ex­pe­ri­ence in gas pro­cess­ing to its ad­van­tage.

“The Gov­ern­ment should go to the Guyanese gov­ern­ment and say, we un­der­stand your po­si­tion. We recog­nise your po­si­tion and did the same many years ago and be­came very suc­cess­ful. So, we want to join you in your suc­cess,” he ex­plained.

Per­sad al­so said one of the things T&T can do to fast-track its de­vel­op­ment in the gas-based in­dus­try is to take the three-in-one LNG plant, move it from Trinidad, and take it to Guyana.

“We will be able to ac­cess our share, at cost, to the val­ue of the LNG train, and we share it 50-50 or what­ev­er. That way, we can bring LNG to T&T quick­ly and ful­fil our gas sup­ply needs by im­port­ing LNG from Guyana. Al­so, our PPGL plant can process the liq­uid,” he said.