Energy Minister Kevin Ramnarine is urging local energy companies to exploit the country's natural gas pools so production can be increased.
The minister, who attended the opening ceremony of the University of the West Indies' Inaugural Oil and Gas Law Conference at the Hyatt Regency yesterday, said the Natural Gas Masterplan, which has not yet been made public, showed there was a lot of natural gas in small pools of 350 billion cubic feet (bcf) or less.
"We have to look at how we could incentivise companies to go after those small pools. It will lead to increased production of natural gas but the incentives have to be there. People will invest if they are incentivised," he said
Last November, Ramnarine announced that London-based consulting firm Poten and Partners had started work on the Natural Gas Masterplan.
He said it was too early to determine what incentives might be offered to investors for exploitation of the natural gas pools.
"We have to look at it and see how we could keep the sector competitive. Companies have come to us and told us that their revenues have been impacted by the falling oil prices. Prices have been going up in the last two or three weeks–West Texas this morning (Thursday) is US$59 per barrel and Brent is about US$66 per barrel.
"There is the potential impact of the Iranian oil coming unto the world market. If the Iranians are able to settle a deal with United States and the embargo is lifted, that is going to bring on a significant amount of oil that was embargoed out of the market. That could bring downward pressure on prices."
Energy Chamber chief executive Thackwray Driver said he supported a change of the tax regime in T&T. He said jurisdictions around the world are looking at ways they could change their tax regimes.
"It is crucial that the country maintains a competitive tax regime compared to the other places which are trying to attract capital. it is a global industry and if you want to attract capital to T&T, we must have the fiscal regime right."