Bay­field En­er­gy's re­cent dis­cov­ery of an es­ti­mat­ed 32 mil­lion bar­rels of re­cov­er­able re­serves in the Ga­le­o­ta Block is an­oth­er ex­am­ple why the Gov­ern­ment needs to find a part­ner for Petrotrin and/or lease out more of its acreage, said the for­mer di­rec­tor of re­source man­age­ment at the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs. He­le­na In­niss-King, now an en­er­gy con­sul­tant, told the Busi­ness Guardian that the last decade has shown clear­ly that the pol­i­cy of leav­ing Petrotrin with a large amount of the coun­try's acreage is a mis­take and when­ev­er the acreage has been leased out, there have been good re­sults. In a tele­phone in­ter­view on Tues­day, In­niss-King said: "If you look at his­to­ry of last eight to ten years and look at all the acreage that Petrotrin holds and what is has as joint ven­tures, we have start­ed to see a blos­som­ing of ar­eas that is has joint ven­tures. Look at the cen­tral block where there is a joint ven­ture arrange­ment with BGTT and we have a new dis­cov­ery on­land, with gas go­ing to At­lantic and liq­uids ac­com­pa­ny­ing it. Be­fore the joint ven­ture, noth­ing was hap­pen­ing."

In­niss-King point­ed to the north coast ma­rine area in which there is a uni­ti­sa­tion agree­ment with BGTT and from which Petrotrin earns sig­nif­i­cant rev­enues as an ex­am­ple of an­oth­er suc­cess­ful joint ven­ture arrange­ment. "Be­fore we start­ed tak­ing away some acreage from Petrotrin and al­low­ing them to en­ter joint ven­tures, all the com­pa­ny did was sit on the acreage and, to be frank, noth­ing was hap­pen­ing. So now we see the ar­eas in the cen­tral range and Guayagua­yare be­ing ex­plored, we will see ex­plo­ration in NC­MA(2) and, so we are see­ing the ben­e­fit of the in­de­pen­dent con­trac­tors and joint ven­tures lead­ing to an in­crease in the lev­el of ac­tiv­i­ty in the sec­tor." She said oth­er than the deep­wa­ter and shelf acreage, where bpTT op­er­ates, there has been lit­tle ac­tiv­i­ty oth­er than the ar­eas that Petrotrin has joint ven­ture arrange­ments. "When we look at Trin­mar, it is clear that there is a need for it to get a part­ner."

In­niss-King added that while she was aware there are some peo­ple who feel that the state com­pa­ny can do it on its own in Trin­mar, Petrotrin does not have the kind of mon­ey need­ed, ei­ther in the short- or medi­um-term, to in­vest in the nec­es­sary in­fra­struc­ture and ex­plo­ration pro­gramme. An­cel Ro­get, pres­i­dent gen­er­al of the Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union (OW­TU), told that Busi­ness Guardian that he will not al­low Petrotrin to bring in a part­ner for Trin­mar. He called that op­tion as a "sell out" to big busi­ness and that the union and work­ers have clear­ly shown they have the abil­i­ty to make Trin­mar work. He said if the work­ers were pre­pared to strike for bet­ter re­mu­ner­a­tion, one can imag­ine what they will do to pro­tect their jobs.

The Gov­ern­ment has an­nounced it is con­sid­er­ing its op­tions with the lease for Trin­mar com­ing to an end in June. It al­so an­nounced it has en­tered in dis­cus­sions with the In­dia-based com­pa­ny, Re­liance In­dus­tries Ltd, about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of set­ting up an up­grad­er in Point Fortin and part­ner­ing with Petrotrin to pro­duce its con­sid­er­able heavy oil re­serves. Pe­tro­le­um con­sul­tant Dr Kr­ish­na Per­sad ar­gues that Petrotrin needs not just one part­ner for Trin­mar, but sev­er­al part­ners. Per­sad said: "I am of the firm opin­ion that when the li­cens­es ex­pire in June, the Gov­ern­ment should split the acreage up in­to five or six blocks, with Petrotrin hav­ing part­ners and they be­ing a non-op­er­at­ing part­ner, re­tain a share of the li­cense and al­low the pri­vate sec­tor to do what they do best, which is ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion. Trin­mar's acreage is the sin­gle largest oil pro­duc­ing area in T&T."

EN­ER­GY RE­PORTER