Interview with Thackawray Driver Director General of the Energy Chamber of Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago has been in the petroleum sector for over one hundred years, developing considerable onshore and shallow water oil and gas exploration activity, with cumulative production of over three (3) billion barrels of oil. As the largest producer of oil and natural gas in the caribbean, Trinidad and Tobago's hydrocarbon sector transitioned from an oil-dominated sector to a primarily natural gas-based sector in the early 1990s. teleSUR
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00:00 Trinidad and Tobago has been in the petroleum sector for over 100 years, developing considerable
00:05 onshore and shallow water oil and gas exploration activity, with cumulative production of over
00:11 3 billion barrels of oils.
00:14 As the largest producer of oil and natural gas in the Caribbean, Trinidad and Tobago's
00:19 hydrocarbon sector transitioned from an oil-dominated sector to a primarily natural gas-based sector
00:26 in the early 1990s.
00:28 Trinidad and Tobago is home to one of the largest natural gas processing facilities
00:33 in the Western Hemisphere.
00:35 The energy sector accounts for about 34.9% of the country's GDP.
00:41 The energy sector continues to be an integral part of the country's economic growth and
00:46 long-term development, contributing significantly to government revenues, exports, earnings
00:52 and GDP.
00:53 To help us better understand this issue, we have a guest in our channel, Dax River, who's
00:58 the Director General of the Trinidad and Tobago Energy Chamber.
01:02 The Energy Chamber is a membership organization representing some 400 companies in Trinidad
01:08 and Tobago's energy sector, ranging from small family-owned contractors to major international
01:14 operating companies in both the upstream and petrochemical sectors.
01:18 Welcome.
01:19 Thank you.
01:20 Considering that Trinidad and Tobago is an island, a Caribbean, what is the state of
01:30 the gas industry and how would you position yourself in the global market?
01:34 Well, so as you were just introducing Trinidad and Tobago, obviously we have a very long
01:40 history in the oil and gas industry, very different from other Caribbean islands, which
01:43 are mostly dominated by tourism, we're dominated by the energy industry.
01:48 So we've been in this thing for more than a century and from the '60s onwards, natural
01:52 gas, and then really natural gas we took off in the 1990s.
01:56 Started off with onshore production and then it's moved offshore and now we're moving into
02:00 deeper waters.
02:02 I think what we have is a pretty well-developed petrochemical sector and an LNG export sector.
02:08 We export product from the petrochemical plants in Point Leicester, from the Atlantic facility,
02:14 LNG facility, all around the world.
02:17 We are a major exporter of LNG, a major exporter of ammonia, which mostly goes into fertilizers,
02:23 and a major exporter of methanol, which is one of the basic building blocks of many of
02:28 the chemicals and increasingly low carbon fuel.
02:31 We also export LPG, butane and propane, most of that goes around the region.
02:36 The other thing I'd highlight is that we use natural gas in our electricity sector.
02:40 A hundred percent of electricity comes from natural gas, which has given us a very stable
02:44 and competitive electricity utility as well, which I think is a big benefit for the country.
02:52 We were a decade ago producing about four billion cubic feet of natural gas a day.
02:58 About half of that went into LNG, about 40% into the petrochemicals and about 10% into
03:03 electricity sector, which mostly used in the domestic economy.
03:07 But our gas production has fallen.
03:08 It's fallen from four BCF a decade ago to now under three BCF.
03:14 So the immediate issue for Trinidad and Tobago is how do we turn around that production and
03:20 increase it.
03:21 And then longer term, obviously, all these issues around the energy transition and how
03:25 do we decarbonize our production as well.
03:28 So those are the major issues that we're facing.
03:34 And there is evidence that gas revenues are important in terms of GDP.
03:39 What is the effect of this income on key sectors like education, health and social welfare
03:44 of the population?
03:45 Well, so our gas industry obviously creates a lot of revenue for the government.
03:50 It creates opportunities for companies, for private sector companies, and it produces
03:55 well-paying jobs as well.
03:56 So Trinidad has a low unemployment rate, under 5%.
03:59 I think it's one of the lowest in the region.
04:03 We have a small population, only 1.2 million people, and a pretty high GDP per capita,
04:09 which the sector has really given us.
04:11 About 18,000 US dollars per capita is our GDP.
04:16 We have good access to electricity, 100% access to electricity, good access to LPG, cooking
04:21 gas for all households at pretty cheap prices.
04:25 We have free health services.
04:28 We've invested a lot in education.
04:30 There's free education right the way through secondary school and subsidized education,
04:35 free means-tested education in two good universities.
04:38 And we have a lot of technical schools as well.
04:40 So that's given us a very well-educated population and a lot of trained employees in the energy
04:46 sector.
04:47 I mean, I don't want to make it sound like a paradise.
04:49 We have problems as well, like everywhere else.
04:51 Crime is obviously an issue which many countries in the region are facing.
04:57 But we have, the energy sector has been good to the country.
05:01 And also in September, your country signed an agreement with Venezuela to promote joint
05:06 projects in the gas and hydrocarbon sector.
05:10 Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago share an important maritime water rich in gas and hydrocarbons.
05:16 What are the benefits that these agreements can bring to the national industry from your
05:20 point of view?
05:21 And what would be the impact on the region?
05:25 So I think really the key here is the issue I was discussing before, how Trinidad's domestic
05:29 gas production has declined from four bcf a day to now below three.
05:35 So that means we have a lot of processing infrastructure, petrochemical plants, LNG
05:41 facilities, which are all available to be used if we can get more gas available into
05:46 the country.
05:47 So if we can import natural gas from Venezuela, that means that we can use that.
05:52 And then it creates a route to the international markets for that natural gas.
05:58 We talk about regionally, there's a regional impact.
06:00 We do sell a lot of our products into regional markets.
06:03 Our LNG goes into Central America, a lot goes to Dominican Republic and Jamaica, in the
06:09 hemisphere, Brazil and Argentina and Chile also we'd sell LNG into there as well.
06:14 Recent years, it's probably been going into Europe, in Spain in particular.
06:18 So the more LNG we can process through our facilities, obviously it's good for us, but
06:23 it also makes the LNG available to the world as well, to regional markets and international
06:27 markets as well.
06:29 The LPG, the liquids which get produced along with the natural gas, there's obviously a
06:36 good regional market for that.
06:38 And there's a big demand for cooking gas around the Caribbean and Central America and South
06:43 America.
06:44 So that's something which I think is good to offer.
06:46 And really what I think that importing natural gas by pipeline from Venezuela would allow
06:52 Trinidad to do is to continue in the industry.
06:56 And that would allow us then to make those investments into greening our gas production.
07:02 Obviously, we're proud that we are a natural gas economy, gas being in terms of climate
07:07 change one of the cleaner fossil fuels or the cleanest fossil fuel, but also allows
07:12 us to transition while we are continuing with the industry into green hydrogen and lower
07:17 carbon products.
07:18 That'll take time, so we need to continue to do as we're doing that.
07:24 Dax Ryber, Director General of the Energy Chamber of Trinidad and Tobago from Telesur
07:29 in English, thank you for your time and for answering our questions.
07:33 Thank you.
07:34 [BLANK_AUDIO]