Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The En­er­gy Min­istry has ap­proved a farm-in to Block Trinidad and To­ba­go Ul­tra Deep-1 (TTUD-1) by ma­jor Amer­i­can en­er­gy com­pa­ny Oc­ci­den­tal Pe­tro­le­um Cor­po­ra­tion (Oxy), says Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

“Oxy is one of the largest com­pa­nies in the world in the oil/en­er­gy sec­tor, so we wel­come them,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said dur­ing Fri­day’s sit­ting of Par­lia­ment.

The PM said in the pre­vi­ous decade, un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion, debt near­ly dou­bled from $75.4B in 2015 to $144.7B in 2025, which the UNC in­her­it­ed. She said out­put al­so con­tract­ed by 20 per cent.

“For­eign re­serves were cut in half. Bil­lions were with­drawn from na­tion­al sav­ings. But in just one year we’ve be­gun to turn the tide, restor­ing T&T’s stand­ing with­in the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty,” the PM said.

She de­tailed de­vel­op­ments, in­clud­ing the mon­thend Mer­co­sur meet­ing where T&T will seek as­so­ciate mem­ber­ship, fur­ther­ing the coun­try’s trade in­te­gra­tion with South/Cen­tral Amer­i­ca.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said in Au­gust of 2025, Exxon­Mo­bil re­turned to in­vest in T&T’s en­er­gy sec­tor with the award of a Pro­duc­tion Shar­ing Con­tract for Block TTUD-1 (Trinidad and To­ba­go Ul­tra Deep-1).

“Work­ing close­ly with all stake­hold­ers, we ac­cel­er­at­ed per­mit­ting, en­abling Exxon­Mo­bil to launch one of the largest seis­mic pro­grammes in T&T with­in six months of sign­ing the PSC. I’m ad­vised that seis­mic ac­qui­si­tion is now ap­prox­i­mate­ly 85 per cent com­plete, with full ac­qui­si­tion ex­pect­ed by late Ju­ly,” she added.

“Fol­low­ing Exxon­Mo­bil’s en­try in­to Block TTUD-1, we’ve ex­pe­ri­enced sig­nif­i­cant in­ter­na­tion­al in­ter­est. In this vein, we’re pleased to wel­come an­oth­er ma­jor Amer­i­can en­er­gy com­pa­ny in­to T&T. Gov­ern­ment, via the Min­istry of En­er­gy, has ap­proved a farm-in to Block TTUD-1 by Oc­ci­den­tal Pe­tro­le­um Cor­po­ra­tion (Oxy), with a 10 per cent par­tic­i­pat­ing in­ter­est.”

Un­der this arrange­ment, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Exxon­Mo­bil re­mains the op­er­a­tor and will re­tain 90 per cent par­tic­i­pat­ing in­ter­est.

“Exxon­Mo­bil has in­di­cat­ed they look for­ward to work­ing close­ly with Oxy to fur­ther eval­u­ate the block’s re­source po­ten­tial. The en­try of Oc­ci­den­tal in­to this block demon­strates that T&T is once again on the radar of the world’s largest, most ca­pa­ble en­er­gy com­pa­nies.”

She said the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny record­ed over $3.2 bil­lion in prof­its, and div­i­dends were re­stored to thou­sands of cit­i­zens at TTNGL.

“All down­stream gas sup­ply agree­ments for 2026 have been set­tled. NGC’s work­ing to se­cure our fu­ture gas sup­ply,” she said.

Work con­tin­ues steadi­ly on the Man­akin-Cocuina, Man­a­tee, Onyx and Drag­on fields, she added. Holdover let­ters have al­so been giv­en to 25 quar­ry op­er­a­tors, and work con­tin­ues to ap­prove let­ters for about 30 more ap­pli­cants.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the lat­ter will pro­vide Gov­ern­ment with ag­gre­gate need­ed for Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion and in­fra­struc­tur­al projects. She said the PNM had kept these to a min­i­mum, giv­ing a few peo­ple, plus a lot of il­le­gal quar­ry­ing had al­so oc­curred. The new sys­tem will lev­el the play­ing field with more af­ford­able prices, the PM said.