RAMNARINE: OIL AND GAS PRODUCTION AN ISSUE

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Former Energy Minister Kevin Ramnarine believes it is imperative that the government focuses on further diversifying  the energy portfolio, amid what he says is a decline in the production of oil and gas in this country.   Alicia Boucher has the details from Morning Edition.

Transcript

00:00 I think the minister is going to realize around 54 billion Trinidad and Tobago dollars in

00:05 revenue which is not bad. Of course I think he was expecting a bit more. He was expecting

00:11 about 56, 57 billion.

00:14 That's former Energy Minister Kevin Ramnirine's response to the expectation that this country

00:19 would more than likely get another deficit budget. Ramnirine anticipates that the deficit

00:24 would be about $3 billion, which he says is a small deficit in the context of the oil

00:29 and gas sector. There is some worry.

00:32 We should be okay with oil prices. We should have pretty healthy oil prices going forward.

00:38 Gas prices may be a challenge, but the issue, Marlon, for Trinidad and Tobago remains production.

00:44 Production, production, production. Our oil production is struggling. We are now averaging

00:52 about 55,000 barrels of oil per day. That is about a 28 percent decline over the last

00:59 eight years. We are now averaging 2.5 to 2.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day.

01:06 That is about a 30 percent decline over the last eight years.

01:09 The former Energy Minister believes that government's gas subsidy is manageable and he doesn't expect

01:15 to see any further change in the price of fuel at the pumps. The same goes for LPG,

01:21 which is cooking gas.

01:22 As to where the country should go now, he states that diversification of the investment

01:27 portfolio is needed. He knows that a lot of focus has been placed on Guyana's success

01:32 in the energy sector.

01:33 2024 is going to be a big year for Suriname. They will have their announcement, their big

01:39 announcement in 2024. These are two carry-on countries which are on our doorstep. So we

01:46 have to ask ourselves the question, how do we position our maritime sector to benefit

01:54 from what is happening in those countries?

01:56 Ram Nairain expects that more information on the Dragon Gas Deal and other deep water

02:01 projects would be revealed in the Finance Minister's budget presentation.

02:06 Yesterday the Ministry of Energy awarded three blocks to BP and Shell, deep water blocks,

02:11 but very little detail was given as to what that means and as to what activities those

02:18 two companies would undertake.

02:20 Ram Nairain is also concerned about the Pointe-a-Pierre refinery.

02:24 The government has to say what's the plan for the property, what's the plan for the

02:28 asset. Are we going to leave the refinery as sort of a Mad Max image of Trinidad and

02:36 Tobago that is just going to collapse into scrap metal and rubble?

02:41 Alicia Boucher, TV6 News.

02:44 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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