Energy Reporter
The T&T economy is expected to take a hit in the last four months of 2013 as a result of maintenance work that T&T's largest gas producer is undertaking on its Cassia and Amherstia faciltieis.
Both Republic Bank's senior economist Dr Ronald Ramkissoon and permanent secretary in the Ministry of Energy and Energy Affairs Vishnu Dhanpaul agree that the country's gross domestic product (GDP) will be negatively impacted, but Dhanaul said the Ministry is trying to limit the impact to the month of September.
Dhanpaul said, "There is no doubt that the shutdown of a major part of bpTT's operations will negatively impact the country's GDP, but also the fact that it is being co-ordinated with some of the downstream producers means we will have lower production which will affect GDP."
Ramkisson agreed the lower output will hurt the country's GDP, but said he hoped this was the last major shutdown and the country could move away from a situation where almost every year since the BP's Gulf of Mexico accident, the country has had to do with lower gas production because of its maintenance activity.
Dhanpaul said the ministry did not want the work to go beyond September.
"We are working with all the stakeholders as we try to ensure that it is done in September and does not continue on into the last quarter of the calendar year," Dhanpaul told the Business Guardian in a telephone interview on Tuesday.
While the ministry is hoping to ensure the maintenance work does not go beyond September 2013, bpTT, in an e-mail response, told the Business Guardian its maintenance work will be going into the fourth quarter of this year.
The company said, "As a responsible operator, bpTT always has maintenance work ongoing as part of its normal operations. BPTT has two major maintenance activities planned for September and 4Q 2013, namely, plant turnarounds on the Cassia and Amherstia facilities. "
BPTT said the Cassia hub is bpTT's largest offshore facility. It serves as a hub for seven platforms that are tied back into this facility. The Cassia hub is due for its ten-year turnaround (TAR) in 2013. The maintenance work will include inspections and upgrades to equipment to ensure the safety and reliability of the facility. This activity must be undertaken to ensure compliance with both industry and BP standards and statutory requirements.
According to bpTT, the Cassia maintenance work is being planned to coincide with maintenance activity in the downstream. The Cassia work has been aligned with Atlantic's Train 4's shutdown in September. It said aligning the maintenance activities of the upstream and downstream will minimise the impact of the production outages. BPTT is working closely with the National Gas Company to achieve minimal impact to other downstream operators during the period of the planned turnarounds.
Ramkissoon said while the lower production by bpTT has negatively impacted the economy, the reality is that T&T has failed to do all it can to ensure there was ongoing exploration and production activity.
"We took too long before we found a formula that was going to encourage exploration and production. We took too long before we were able to award contracts to companies to work onland and in the deep, and we did not do a good job in sustaining activity and in sustaining investment in the sector."
