A high lev­el tech­ni­cal del­e­ga­tion from the Re­pub­lic of Kenya, met with top of­fi­cials at the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs to dis­cuss pos­si­bil­i­ties for mu­tu­al co-op­er­a­tion in the fur­ther de­vel­op­ment of the en­er­gy sec­tors of both coun­tries.

The 11-mem­ber del­e­ga­tion is head­ed by Patrick M Ny­oike, per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in Kenya's Min­istry of En­er­gy, and Sumayya Ath­mani, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of the Na­tion­al Oil Cor­po­ra­tion of Kenya. The team com­pris­es mem­bers of the Na­tion­al Fos­sil Fu­els Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee (NAF­FAC) of Kenya, who are on a study tour of the T&T en­er­gy sec­tor.

The min­istry's top of­fi­cials and tech­ni­cal of­fi­cers made brief pre­sen­ta­tions on var­i­ous as­pects of man­ag­ing the lo­cal en­er­gy sec­tor, in­clud­ing the im­por­tant as­pect of en­sur­ing that lo­cal busi­ness­es have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­vest heav­i­ly in the de­vel­op­ment of the na­tion­al en­er­gy econ­o­my.Be­fore de­part­ing T&T yes­ter­day, the Kenyan del­e­ga­tion vis­it­ed en­er­gy in­stal­la­tions at Petrotrin in Pointe-a-Pierre and the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate.

The T&T en­er­gy sec­tor is viewed by many African coun­tries now at­tempt­ing to de­vel­op their na­tion­al sec­tors, as an ex­cel­lent mod­el to learn from and em­u­late. Gov­ern­ment re­cent­ly ap­proved a new African Ini­tia­tive, which seeks to build on and broad­en the orig­i­nal pol­i­cy es­tab­lished back in 2008.

Both the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs and the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs are work­ing close­ly with this coun­try's diplo­mat­ic emis­saries based in Africa in the plan­ning and ex­e­cu­tion of study tours and vis­its from prospec­tive part­ners in Africa. Part of this vi­sion in­volves cre­ation of pos­si­ble ex­change pro­grammes be­tween T&T ex­ec­u­tives and of­fi­cials and their coun­ter­parts on the African con­ti­nent to ex­pand en­er­gy and trade busi­ness.