The Gov­ern­ment is still in ne­go­ti­a­tions con­cern­ing the fu­ture of At­lantic LNG Train 1, Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Stu­art Young said in Par­lia­ment on Monday.

The Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West MP said the Op­po­si­tion was us­ing the re­cent an­nounce­ment by BPTT con­cern­ing gas sup­ply to the Point Fortin plant, as a tool for fear mon­ger­ing.

“Yes, ob­vi­ous­ly this gov­ern­ment is go­ing to look at what hap­pens with Train 1. There is no re­joic­ing, this gov­ern­ment is not hap­py about any set­back what­so­ev­er, in the en­er­gy sec­tor. But this gov­ern­ment will not roll over, we are work­ing hard and con­tin­u­ing our ne­go­ti­a­tions with Shell,” said Young.

He said the Gov­ern­ment had tak­en note of what was hap­pen­ing with BPTT con­cern­ing their gas sup­ply, and of­fered some clar­i­fi­ca­tion con­cern­ing the sit­u­a­tion.

“BP has not had four dry wells. What hap­pened is in (the Can­non­ball plat­form) they were drilling in De­cem­ber 2018, in the first well they were drilling, Im­mortelle en­coun­tered a me­chan­i­cal in­tegri­ty is­sue and as a re­sult of that they had to drill a sec­ond one in­to sand and that was the well that was found to be wet and that there will be no pro­duc­tion from. In East­er of this year, they then drilled two in Cashima and the well in Cashima is not a dry well. The well in Cashima at this point in time ap­pears to have less than they thought. They were go­ing for a hun­dred mil­lion scuffs (stan­dard cu­bic feet of gas),” said Young dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion in the Low­er House, “So what they are look­ing to do right now is re-eval­u­ate.”

Train 1’s pro­duc­tion con­tract was set to ex­pire in April, but the Gov­ern­ment had ne­go­ti­at­ed with BPTT and Shell to con­tin­ue pro­duc­tion at the fa­cil­i­ty un­til 2024. That deal was ini­tial­ly an­nounced in No­vem­ber last year.

“We rene­go­ti­at­ed a for­mu­la, an en­hanced rev­enue for­mu­la for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go for Train 1. That is half the amount of gas goes through Train 1 that can go through it will re­sult in an en­hanced rev­enue on an an­nu­al ba­sis. Con­ser­v­a­tive­ly of an ex­tra US$230 mil­lion a year for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

“We are very close to ty­ing up our ne­go­ti­a­tions with Shell and I am cer­tain that with­in the next cou­ple weeks the Min­is­ter of En­er­gy will be able to an­nounce to Trinidad and To­ba­go has done with re­gard to en­hanc­ing rev­enue out of the en­er­gy sec­tor,” said Young.

Young al­so clar­i­fied this coun­try al­so had a 10% own­er­ship stake in the LNG train 4, in re­sponse to the Op­po­si­tion Leader’s claim that the Gov­ern­ment on­ly had a own­er­ship stake in Train 1.