With low lev­els of gas pro­duc­tion and a less than favourable mar­ket, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says there will be dif­fi­cult times for T&T un­til new gas pro­duc­tion in 2027.

Dis­cussing the fu­ture of T&T’s gas in­dus­try at At­lantic’s 25th an­niver­sary and re­struc­tur­ing cel­e­bra­tions at Clifton Hill, Point Fortin, yes­ter­day (See page 15), Row­ley said the seis­mic work is pro­gress­ing on the proven fields, such as with Cocuina and Man­akin, giv­ing con­fi­dence that there is a strong flow of gas com­ing from the bor­der and across the bor­der in the medi­um term. There­fore, he said T&T has to be re­spon­si­ble and hold the fort.

“The pe­ri­od be­tween now and the 2027 sec­ond quar­ter would be one of dif­fi­cul­ty for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go be­cause the cur­rent lev­els to which we are pro­duc­ing, and the mar­ket sit­u­a­tion, would cause us or should cause us to be re­spon­si­ble and hold the fort with a very good view and good con­fi­dence that come 2027, we would be in a bet­ter po­si­tion with this in­dus­try,” Row­ley said.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, the open­ing to sell gas to At­lantic was on­ly for those who had eq­ui­ty in the plant. How­ev­er, Row­ley said At­lantic’s re­struc­tur­ing has caused third par­ties to in­vest more con­fi­dent­ly, as now, any­one on­shore, off­shore or across the bor­der who in­vests in hy­dro­car­bon re­search and ex­plo­ration and finds gas, will know there is a mar­ket in Point Lisas and Point Fortin, with the pull fac­tor, which is that T&T wants the gas. He said it cre­at­ed an en­vi­ron­ment that elim­i­nates the risk of hav­ing strand­ed fields.