Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is de­scrib­ing his re­cent meet­ings with en­er­gy gi­ants in Eu­rope as a crit­i­cal step in en­sur­ing this coun­try’s eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty in the near fu­ture.

While it was de­scribed as a “po­lit­i­cal joyride” by the Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, Row­ley told mem­bers of the me­dia at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre yes­ter­day that it was any­thing but.

The ten-day trip saw the Prime Min­is­ter meet twice with Pro­man in Switzer­land and Ger­many, then with BP in Lon­don and fi­nal­ly with Shell in The Nether­lands. He re­turned on Sun­day night.

Dr Row­ley said yes­ter­day it was im­per­a­tive these meet­ings be held in per­son and at the head­quar­ters of the ma­jor en­er­gy play­ers which have sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ments in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“If we sit idly by and wait for some­thing to hap­pen in our favour, it is quite pos­si­ble that cer­tain de­ci­sions which are crit­i­cal to us may not be in our favour,” the Prime Min­is­ter stressed.

Dr Row­ley sought to re­mind cit­i­zens that this coun­try still re­lies heav­i­ly on the in­come gen­er­at­ed from its en­er­gy sec­tor, par­tic­u­lar­ly from nat­ur­al gas.

And he said his Gov­ern­ment must re­main proac­tive in se­cur­ing that rev­enue, as the cur­rent nat­ur­al gas out­put is de­clin­ing.

“At the peak of our per­for­mance, Trinidad and To­ba­go was pro­duc­ing 4.2Bcf (Bil­lion Cu­bic Feet) of nat­ur­al gas per day, but over time as the fields ma­ture and we used up what was there and not find­ing re­place­ments on that scale, our pro­duc­tion has fall­en con­sid­er­ably in gas as well, to­day we are pro­duc­ing 2.9Bcf.”

The Prime Min­is­ter said the coun­try needs to main­tain its cur­rent en­er­gy earn­ings, as any de­cline now could have se­ri­ous im­pli­ca­tions in the fu­ture.

“By 2026, 2027, 2028, the lev­els of gas that would be avail­able in Trinidad and To­ba­go if no new im­prove­ments are had, will have far-reach­ing con­se­quences for Gov­ern­ment rev­enues and I dare­say for the qual­i­ty of life all the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Promis­ing more de­tails in the fu­ture, the Prime Min­is­ter gave a syn­op­sis of the progress made at those meet­ings.

With re­spect to Pro­man, Dr Row­ley said in Zurich, the com­pa­ny’s ex­ec­u­tives held dis­cus­sions on fu­ture ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion of nat­ur­al gas, to pro­vide feed­stock for the plants in Trinidad and To­ba­go, new de­vel­op­ments and in­vest­ments Pro­man is mak­ing in ship­ping and the pos­si­bil­i­ty and po­ten­tial for Pro­man to use methanol as a fu­el for its ocean-go­ing ves­sels and for Trinidad and To­ba­go to be a ma­jor re­fu­elling point.

Dr Row­ley said there were al­so dis­cus­sions on how this coun­try can ac­cess fi­nanc­ing for ma­jor en­er­gy projects.

Mean­while, dur­ing his meet­ing with BP in Lon­don, the PM said dis­cus­sions were had with the main peo­ple in the Liqui­fied Nat­ur­al Gas (LNG) busi­ness in T&T, with a view to re­struc­tur­ing the arrange­ments for pro­duc­ing and ben­e­fit­ing from LNG in the mar­ket.

“BP is the largest pro­duc­er of nat­ur­al gas in Trinidad and To­ba­go and is crit­i­cal to our en­er­gy sec­tor,” he said.

And dur­ing his meet­ing with Shell, which Dr Row­ley de­scribed as the largest LNG share­hold­er in this coun­try, he said in-depth dis­cus­sions were had about the com­pa­ny’s cur­rent pro­duc­tion lev­els in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“Which is at its high­est lev­el since Shell has re-en­tered Trinidad and To­ba­go it is cur­rent­ly at 850 mm­scf/d,” he not­ed.

Row­ley said they al­so dis­cussed the fu­ture gas pro­duc­tion out­look, in­clud­ing Man­a­tee, which will be the largest in­vest­ment in gas pro­duc­tion in T&T in a decade.

The Prime Min­is­ter said con­trary to what was said by the UNC, at no time dur­ing his trip was the sell­ing off of CLI­CO’s shares in the Point Lisas methanol plant to Pro­man on the agen­da. He di­rect­ed a mes­sage to the op­po­si­tion mem­bers.

“Do us a favour and not un­der­mine our ef­fort be­cause they may serve your pur­pose, but it doesn’t serve the pur­pose of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Mean­while, the Prime Min­is­ter will again leave the coun­try to­day, this time for Wash­ing­ton, USA, where he will at­tend a meet­ing to fur­ther dis­cuss en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty, fi­nance and agri­cul­ture in the Caribbean. This will be a fol­low-up meet­ing to what was held on Ju­ly 12, where Dr Row­ley co-chaired the first meet­ing of the US/Caribbean En­er­gy Se­cu­ri­ty Ac­tion Com­mit­tee.

That meet­ing will hap­pen this Thurs­day.

Dr Row­ley will al­so hold meet­ings on the is­sue of de-risk­ing that is fac­ing Caribbean banks - an is­sue that Cari­com raised in 2019.

“Now we got what we fi­nal­ly want­ed, which was to be heard by banks in front of the Unit­ed States Con­gress,” he said.

The Prime Min­is­ter said he will be back by the week­end but not be­fore vis­it­ing his new grand­child in the US.

“I hope that does not up­set too many peo­ple, but wish me well,” he said with a smirk.