- 10 months ago
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00:00I have come here today concerned about a number of matters that have arisen and concerned
00:07as I've always been as a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago and I think it's my duty as I have
00:14performed in the last 10 years to continue to do what I can and what is within my purview
00:21and within my reach to not only defend Trinidad and Tobago but to ensure that the
00:28people of Trinidad and Tobago always have the truth and have the best information before them
00:34and as I've said and I've said consistently in public and I only say what I have factually
00:42have evidence of and also what I mean that I will continue to do all that I can to protect Trinidad
00:48and Tobago so I've come here this morning to deal with a few issues really in the energy sector a
00:56sector that a lot of time effort was spent over the last few years because the truth is it is the
01:01bread line of Trinidad and Tobago and whilst we all would like diversification and we all will press
01:08for diversification diversification does not come very easily especially when you're dealing with a
01:15hydrocarbon based economy where for decades and a sophisticated one that we have in Trinidad and Tobago
01:21where we have both the production of oil but then also the use of natural gas into LNG as well as
01:29other products such as ammonia methanol and these types of products that really sustain our economy
01:36this morning anyone paying attention would see that the price of oil now has fallen to between 58 dollars
01:45and 60 dollars a barrel of oil something that we're cautioning about so having said that and with
01:52that as a contextual background I'd like to use your time this morning just to really discuss a few concepts
01:59that have arisen and really to offer some words of caution and for whatever it is to say look at the end
02:06of the day it is one Trinidad and Tobago and whoever is in government governing our one Trinidad and Tobago
02:14let us do what is best for the population of Trinidad and Tobago and put aside the what people may see
02:22as the the politics in decision making that will ultimately harm the people of Trinidad and Tobago the
02:29first thing I'd like to touch on is I saw it being suggested by the honorable prime minister
02:34prime minister Kamala Prasad-Bissessa as well as her newly appointed minister of energy the minister
02:43Rudal Munilal the new minister of energy and energy industries that they are now going to turn towards
02:51Grenada and the exact words were Grenada offshore has more gas and oil than the dragon deal I'd just
02:59like to offer some cautionary words with respect to this it was in 2012 a government led by Miss
03:06Prasad-Bissessa signed an MOU with Grenada with respect to hydrocarbons an energy sector development
03:14framework agreement in 2012 but in 2018 the NGC went and signed a commercial arrangement with a company
03:24called Global Petroleum Group which was I believe a Russian based company negotiated at the time a
03:32commercial term sheet for any gas reserves that were found on gas reserves any gas that would be produced
03:39so actually arranged and negotiated commercial terms however the facts are that this one well was drilled
03:48in a field in a field called nutmeg that one exploration well unfortunately had to be abandoned and has been
03:56kept that is since 2018 the way the energy sector works is that right now they are no proven reserves there are no
04:05proven reserves meaning it is only when you have proven reserves you can begin to look at how you commercialize that gas
04:13how do you now produce the gas so at this stage I would just caution about this concept whilst I hope
04:23that there are significant hydrocarbon resources the fact that since 2018 to now there has been no progress
04:30on this and that there are no proven reserves with one well-being drill certainly certainly means that it is
04:38very very very far from any commercialization because first of all
04:43there are no proven reserves at this stage you would have to drill more wells only after you drill
04:49drill wells you then do what you call analysis of what is found as a result of those wells what what may be
04:57contained in reservoirs and only after a lot of work and a lot of analysis
05:02you then decide okay there are in fact proven reserves or possible reserves there you would
05:10then be required to drill more wells and to move towards negotiations for commercialization
05:17this is also going to be fields that have no close infrastructure nearby so to commercialize and to bring any
05:26such reserves to market is simply not at this stage a feasible concept you're also now dealing in a world
05:36where the truth is there are concepts like floating lng where persons depending on the amount of reservoirs
05:43of gas may very well just put down platforms extract the gas straight into floating lng platforms
05:51and take the gas elsewhere rather than bringing it via pipeline to onshore so i am simply cautioning
05:59and seeing the trinidad and to be what this stage this is very very far off from being feasible in fact
06:06when i was minister of energy i did have conversations with the prime minister of grenada as well as his
06:13various ministers offering for us to utilize whatever expertise we have at the ministry of energy
06:19to look at the seismic data that may be available the truth is the company the global petroleum group
06:27ran into difficulties it is not an easy thing you have to find companies that are going to spend
06:32significant sums of money to do the exploration to do the proving and then to go through the commercial
06:39concepts the minimum amount of time this can take if you find significant reserves that make it commercial
06:47would be between 10 to 15 years trinidad and tobago has to look at the short term and the medium term which
06:54is exactly what was being done and should continue to be done having said that looking at the rest of the
07:02carricorn region in august 2019 the government of trinidad and tobago signed an mou with barbados
07:11focus focused on energy energy security and energy exploration development and production in relation
07:18to hydrocarbon resources at the time the government also asked bhp the australian operator that was doing
07:28work upon our deep water off of the northeastern coast of tobago to utilize seismic vessels that had come in
07:37to look at our deep water and to utilize those vessels of one what we call a mission in barbados's
07:43waters with some fields there that there was a feeling there may be prospects as well bhp followed and
07:51actually did pursue it thankfully and bhp did seismic and that seismic was done at the same time they were
07:58doing seismic in trinidad and tobago's waters right afterwards unfortunately bhp has exited those fields
08:08in barbados we continue to have conversation with barbados i continue to have discussions i was looking
08:14at pursuing trying to persuade other global operators to go in and see to what work they could do in
08:21barbados it has always been the government's view that we should pursue whatever resources they are
08:28within close proximity to trinidad and tobago so bhp exited and they would only exit because they realized
08:36at that time or for whatever reason they did not think it was commercial nor were they the amounts of
08:42reserves there with respect to guyana it was in september 2018 that trinidad and tobago signed an mou
08:50for cooperation in the energy sector with the guyanese government as you well know and as the
08:56records reflect we pursued this as the government of trinidad and tobago and at the guyanese energy
09:04conference dr rowley the former prime minister delivered feature addresses and i as the minister of
09:11energy delivered a number of keynote speeches at a number of the guyanese energy conferences because we
09:19did pursue talks with the guyanese government offering to look at it to look and see but again
09:26the truth is at this stage it is still undetermined what are the reserves that may be possible may exist
09:34in guyana i hope that as we go forward in the future the conversations would be pursued of course the
09:42main operator there is exxon exxon have to pay play a very key and critical role i can tell the country
09:49i made several visits to the exxon headquarters in order to try and persuade them along with the
09:55government of guyana for us to look at commercializing if they had sufficient amounts of gas
10:02commercializing it in trinidad and tobago because of the existing infrastructure here not only on the lng side
10:09but also on what we call the pet cam side
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