Skip to playerSkip to main content
CCNTV6
  • 4 months ago
Finance Minister Davendranath Tancoo is doubling down on the decision to base the national budget on an oil price of US $73.25, despite significantly lower global averages.

Responding to critics who have called the projection “optimistic”, Tancoo says he believes it is realistic, but says government did consider different scenarios of both higher and lower prices when drafting Monday’s budget.

He spoke with our reporter Cindy Raghubar-Teekersingh following the T&T Chamber of Industry and Commerce Post Budget Meeting in C3, San Fernando Tuesday morning.

Category

🗞
News
Transcript
00:00Realistic, not optimistic, is how Finance Minister Devendra Natanku described government's decision
00:07to predicate its $59 billion budget on an oil price of U.S. $73.25 per barrel.
00:16During a post-budget meeting hosted by the TNT Chamber of Industrial and Commerce in San Fernando on Tuesday,
00:23a representative of Heritage Petroleum Company Limited asked whether or not the minister thought it was an optimistic estimate.
00:32I believe it is a realistic projection of where the oil prices are.
00:37But if you are comparing it with Brent, for example, you may be inclined to believe that our estimate is a bit higher.
00:43But we are not comparing it with Brent.
00:44So we are using the mechanism developed by the former administration,
00:48which is the use of a basket of oil prices to generate an average price.
00:54And we have taken the average of the averages.
00:57The Brent crude oil price estimate has been reported to likely fall from an average of U.S. $62 per barrel
01:05in the fourth quarter of 2025 and reaches lower U.S. $52 per barrel in 2026.
01:12Minister Tanku was later asked by reporters if any contingencies are in place
01:18in the event of potential shortfalls in its oil price projections, on which fiscal 2026 is based.
01:26We work with a multiplicity of scenarios, not just in terms of selecting the price of oil and gas
01:32that we are going to be using, but in terms of what effects will happen, whether we get or we don't get.
01:38The price is higher and the price is lower.
01:40So, yes, there are various scenarios that have been played out,
01:44including the possibility that the price of oil drops significantly lower than it currently is based on our assessment.
01:52So, yes, there are scenario planning that has occurred.
01:56So we are preparing for those eventualities if they happen as well.
02:00Asked whether or not the government may turn to dipping into the Heritage and Stabilization Fund,
02:06he had this to say.
02:07We have several financing mechanisms available to us.
02:10I don't want to assume that we are going to go in any particular direction outside of what we have constrained ourselves to at this point.
02:17But if we are going to go to the HSF, it will be within the confines and requirements of the law itself.
02:24Remember that the HSF was created for particular people, so the purpose is twofold.
02:28One of which is also for budgetary support.
02:30Cindy Raghu Baotika Singh, TV6 News.
Comments