Aleem Khan

Port Ga­le­o­ta will be ready this year, se­nior en­er­gy of­fi­cials from the Min­istry of En­er­gy and the Na­tion­al En­er­gy Co­po­ra­tion have said.

Last year, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine said: "We start­ed work on the Ga­le­o­ta Port, which was a project of the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion that had been stalled. We un-stalled the Ga­le­o­ta Port and it has com­menced, and we ex­pect the port to be com­plet­ed some time this year."

Ram­nar­ine, speak­ing about the port, said: "It is not just a port. Ga­le­o­ta could be­come a city, be­cause as you know cities have their gen­e­sis in ports. We have the port of Sin­ga­pore. Lon­don is a port city. New York is a port city. Port-of-Spain is a port city."

Ram­nar­ine was speak­ing dur­ing a re­cent sit­ting of the Sen­ate while the Fi­nance Bill 2013 was be­ing dis­cussed.

"Ga­le­o­ta is at the cen­tre of a cir­cle that in­cludes T&T's deep­wa­ter acreage; that in­cludes T&T's shal­low wa­ter acreage on the east coast. As you know, we have a tremen­dous amount of in­fra­struc­ture out there on the east coast, and it is al­so cen­tral to Venezuela. It is cen­tral to Guyana, Suri­name and French Guiana.

"One of the things that you learn when you go to the en­er­gy con­fer­ence is that a lot of what is hap­pen­ing in French Guiana is be­ing planned in Ch­aguara­mas, in Trinidad, and is be­ing planned in Port-of-Spain. In fact, the well that Rep­sol drilled in Guyana last year was planned from Port-of-Spain. So, Port-of-Spain is be­com­ing the Hous­ton of the Caribbean and we ex­pect that Ga­le­o­ta would be­come a sig­nif­i­cant en­er­gy ser­vices hub for this part of the Caribbean. So that is the vi­sion."

Work on Port Ga­le­o­ta be­gan in No­vem­ber 2011. At a dou­ble cer­e­mo­ny cel­e­brat­ing the sod-turn­ing for the port and the open­ing of a fish-land­ing fa­cil­i­ty in Guayagua­yare, the Na­tion­al En­er­gy Cor­po­ra­tion (NEC) es­ti­mat­ed the cost of both projects at US$80 mil­lion. Con­struc­tion for the fish-land­ing fa­cil­i­ty, which be­gan in 2010, was said to have cost US$5.6 mil­lion.

Dr Ver­non Pal­too, pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al En­er­gy Cor­po­ra­tion (NEC), had al­so said dur­ing the T&T En­er­gy Con­fer­ence last month: "That is why we are pur­su­ing the de­vel­op­ment of the Ga­le­o­ta Port which is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed this year and, fur­ther to that, the ex­pan­sion of the Ga­le­o­ta Port, which we an­tic­i­pate will be used as a hub for pro­vid­ing ser­vices to emerg­ing en­er­gy fron­tier coun­tries such as (those in) South Amer­i­ca and Africa. So in essence, I want to po­si­tion T&T, through the NEC, not just to ex­pand the en­er­gy sec­tor lo­cal­ly, but to en­sure that we go well in­to the fu­ture as an in­ter­na­tion­al play­er in the en­er­gy sec­tor."

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