Mar­i­ano Browne

Time­ly, re­li­able eco­nom­ic da­ta is crit­i­cal to un­der­stand­ing how an econ­o­my is per­form­ing. In ma­jor economies, ma­jor eco­nom­ic da­ta re­leas­es fol­low strict sched­ules. For ex­am­ple, the US Bu­reau of Sta­tis­tics pub­lish­es its em­ploy­ment da­ta on the first Fri­day of the fol­low­ing month, in­fla­tion da­ta mid-month, and es­ti­mates fol­low quar­ter­ly track­ing cy­cles. The US Bu­reau of Eco­nom­ic Analy­sis will pub­lish its ad­vance es­ti­mates for Sep­tem­ber 2026 on Oc­to­ber 29. The da­ta re­leased in­cludes da­ta for the pre­vi­ous month.

Pub­lished fig­ures are re­vised when the fi­nal da­ta is tab­u­lat­ed. Still, ear­ly pub­li­ca­tion helps in­vestors, busi­ness­es, and the gen­er­al pub­lic to un­der­stand how the econ­o­my is per­form­ing and make the nec­es­sary strate­gic and tac­ti­cal ad­just­ments. The same is true of the Fed­er­al Re­serve Board, as its an­nounce­ments can af­fect world fi­nan­cial mar­kets. Clos­er to home, the T&T Cen­tral Bank re­leas­es its quar­ter­ly eco­nom­ic da­ta via the Eco­nom­ic Dat­a­Pack on the last work­ing day of each quar­ter.

The dif­fi­cul­ty with the CBTT da­ta is that it does not pro­vide enough cur­rent GDP da­ta or in­for­ma­tion on the en­er­gy sec­tor. The fault re­al­ly lies with the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice. En­er­gy sec­tor da­ta, es­pe­cial­ly nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion and en­er­gy ex­ports, are crit­i­cal to as­sess­ing the econ­o­my’s over­all per­for­mance. The En­er­gy Min­istry’s da­ta pub­li­ca­tion pro­vides nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion da­ta on­ly through May 2026. Av­er­age dai­ly pro­duc­tion for the first five months of 2026 was 2.428 bil­lion cu­bic feet (bcf), down from 2.538 bcfd in 2025 (a 4.3 per cent de­cline). This sug­gests the econ­o­my in 2026 is grow­ing more slow­ly than in 2025.

The 2026 IMF Ar­ti­cle IV re­port pro­ject­ed T&T’s growth rate at 0.8 per cent in 2026, with the non-en­er­gy sec­tor grow­ing by 2.6 per cent, there­by com­pen­sat­ing for the de­cline in the en­er­gy sec­tor. Non-en­er­gy now in­cludes the petro­chem­i­cal sec­tor (methanol, am­mo­nia, urea) since it was re­clas­si­fied to the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor in 2017. Be­cause petro­chem­i­cal prices bal­looned be­tween 2022-23 due to the war in Ukraine, even though nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion was falling and many plants were idled, the in­creased mon­e­tary val­ue of small­er petro­chem­i­cal pro­duc­tion pushed the T&T econ­o­my to record growth of 1.5 per cent and 2.5 per cent in 2022 and 2023, end­ing sev­en years of con­tin­u­ous eco­nom­ic de­cline.

The Mid­dle East ac­counts for around 29 per cent of glob­al am­mo­nia sup­ply and ap­prox­i­mate­ly 56 per cent of to­tal glob­al methanol ex­ports. The con­flict there, the block­ade of the Strait of Hor­muz and the re­sult­ing ship­ping dis­rup­tions have choked off crit­i­cal mar­itime cor­ri­dors, caus­ing glob­al petro­chem­i­cal prices to surge. High­er prices should be a wind­fall for the Point Lisas plants. Many gas sup­ply con­tracts there are linked to am­mo­nia and methanol prices, so NGC ben­e­fits too. The catch is vol­ume. The Cen­tral Bank’s May 2026 re­port showed am­mo­nia out­put down 3.4 per cent, methanol down 9.5 per cent and urea down 59.9 per cent in Q4 2025, af­ter Nu­trien closed its plant in No­vem­ber 2025. The coun­try can’t take full ad­van­tage of high prices with­out more gas.

The same is true of liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas ex­ports. The war’s ef­fect on gas prices de­pends on where the gas is sold. Asian and Eu­ro­pean LNG prices jumped, while US gas prices bare­ly moved. T&T should earn more per LNG car­go over the next 12 months. The to­tal gain will be small­er than the price rise sug­gests, be­cause out­put is lim­it­ed and much of the ex­tra val­ue goes to the com­pa­nies that sell the LNG rather than to the state. This sit­u­a­tion will not change un­til the trans­fer-pric­ing tax is­sue is re­solved.

The Cen­tral Bank’s Sep­tem­ber Eco­nom­ic Dat­a­pack pro­vides lim­it­ed da­ta for the sec­ond quar­ter and no third-quar­ter GDP da­ta. The pic­ture may be­come a bit clear­er when ad­di­tion­al eco­nom­ic da­ta is re­leased to com­ple­ment the Bud­get Speech on Oc­to­ber 12. The ev­i­dence so far does not sug­gest that eco­nom­ic growth will reach the 0.8 per cent pro­ject­ed by the IMF. Com­pa­nies still strug­gle to get US dol­lars. Re­serves cov­er sev­er­al months of im­ports but have been falling. New gas fields most­ly re­place lost sup­ply rather than add to it, hence the em­pha­sis on ac­cess­ing gas in Venezue­lan wa­ters.

Shell’s Man­a­tee field, the largest up­com­ing source of sup­ply, is ex­pect­ed to start pro­duc­ing in the sec­ond or third quar­ter of 2027. BP’s new­er fields, such as Cypre, add some vol­ume too. To­geth­er they should al­le­vi­ate the gas short­fall that has left At­lantic LNG and the Point Lisas petro­chem­i­cal plants op­er­at­ing be­low ca­pac­i­ty in mid to late 2027. Cross-bor­der fields (Lo­ran, Drag­on and Man­akin-Cocuina) are the big un­knowns. Their prospects de­pend on US sanc­tions and the po­lit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in Venezuela. If they go ahead, they would be the most im­por­tant source of growth be­yond 2027. Their tim­ing is still un­cer­tain.

Giv­en the da­ta, 2026 and 2027 can be cat­e­gorised as a hold­ing pat­tern, wait­ing for en­er­gy sec­tor projects to come and stream in mid to late 2027, too late to have a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on the 2027 fis­cal year. The en­er­gy sec­tor should get a tem­po­rary lift in 2028 as new gas comes on­line. Un­der­neath that, the long-term pres­sures haven’t changed: gas sup­ply is de­clin­ing, for­eign ex­change is scarce, the pub­lic fi­nances are un­der strain, and the debt ser­vice is ris­ing as in­ter­est rates in­crease in in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets, es­pe­cial­ly US Trea­suries. In­fla­tion is low now, but in­ter­na­tion­al in­fla­tion­ary pres­sures will quick­ly spill over in­to the do­mes­tic mar­ket. Pub­lic ex­pen­di­ture is the on­ly vari­able that the gov­ern­ment con­trols.

Mar­i­ano Browne is the Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the UWI Arthur Lok Jack Glob­al School of Busi­ness