The dis­clo­sure on Fri­day by the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) of a strate­gic re­align­ment of cred­it rat­ing agency en­gage­ments has left many an­a­lysts with ques­tions con­cern­ing the fu­ture of the whol­ly state-owned com­pa­ny’s in­ter­na­tion­al busi­ness re­la­tion­ships.

NGC said part of this re­align­ment was the dis­con­tin­u­a­tion of its re­la­tion­ship with Moody’s In­vestors Ser­vice, ef­fec­tive Feb­ru­ary 26.

The an­nounce­ment of this re­align­ment came hours af­ter Moody’s stat­ed it had with­drawn the Ba2 cor­po­rate fam­i­ly rat­ing (CFR), ba2 base­line cred­it as­sess­ment (BCA) and Ba2 se­nior un­se­cured notes of NGC due to the is­suer’s de­ci­sion to cease par­tic­i­pa­tion in the rat­ing process.

Moody's ac­tion and NGC's re­ac­tion have raised sig­nif­i­cant ques­tions about the T&T com­pa­ny’s abil­i­ty to do busi­ness and in­vestor con­fi­dence in this coun­try fol­low­ing that de­ci­sion.

En­er­gy ex­pert Gre­go­ry McGuire raised sev­er­al such ques­tions, not­ing that the de­ci­sion by the NGC had far-reach­ing con­se­quences par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en the fact that just last month, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced the com­pa­ny had record­ed over $3 bil­lion in prof­its in the Par­lia­ment.

In his re­sponse to the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian, McGuire posed three ques­tions, “Why would a com­pa­ny re­port­ing record prof­its of TT$3.28 bil­lion refuse to par­tic­i­pate in the rat­ings process? What does this de­vel­op­ment mean for the com­pa­ny and its sub­sidiaries? What are the im­pli­ca­tions for Trinidad and To­ba­go?”

McGuire added there were al­so sev­er­al cru­cial is­sues raised in Moody’s last rat­ing as­sess­ment of NGC, which high­light­ed risks that should be con­sid­ered.

“In De­cem­ber 2025, Moody’s re­vised NGC’s out­look from sta­ble to neg­a­tive, main­ly be­cause of the down­grade of T&T’s sov­er­eign rat­ing. How­ev­er, that re­port al­so warned that NGC could face fur­ther down­grades if any of the fol­low­ing risks ma­te­ri­alised:

• A ma­te­r­i­al weak­en­ing in the mar­gins or cash flow of NGC and its sub­sidiaries;

• Greater gov­ern­ment in­ter­fer­ence through high­er tax­es or div­i­dend ex­trac­tions that strain liq­uid­i­ty; and

• Di­ver­sion of NGC from its core busi­ness in­to pub­lic pol­i­cy pro­grammes, such as ex­tend­ing cred­it to less prof­itable state en­ti­ties.”

Based on this as­sess­ment, McGuire asked, "Has NGC trig­gered any of these con­di­tions, and is that why in­for­ma­tion was with­held? Based on what is cur­rent­ly in the pub­lic do­main, NGC may strug­gle to per­suade Moody’s that none of the three ap­plies."

The en­er­gy ex­pert al­so not­ed re­cent com­ments from NGC Chair­man Ger­ald Ramdeen about the scale of div­i­dend with­drawals from NGC and from sub­sidiaries such as PPG­PL and NEC.

McGuire said, "It has al­so been re­port­ed that these prof­it de­c­la­ra­tions were made be­fore the au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments were pub­lished, which rais­es cor­po­rate gov­er­nance con­cerns.

"In ad­di­tion, TTEC re­port­ed­ly owes NGC a sub­stan­tial debt, con­tin­u­ing to pres­sure the com­pa­ny’s fi­nances. Chair­man Ramdeen has al­so stat­ed pub­licly that NGC div­i­dends will help fund pub­lic goods such as health, ed­u­ca­tion, trans­port, and roads. That could be seen as di­vert­ing the com­pa­ny from its core op­er­a­tions."

Sev­er­al who com­ment­ed on the mat­ter on Fri­day, in­clud­ing for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan, stat­ed that the move could have im­pli­ca­tions for NGC Group.

Seep­er­sad-Bachan, who served dur­ing the 2010 to 2015 ad­min­is­tra­tion led by cur­rent Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, said the move could even im­pact the Drag­on Gas deal.

"In in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial mar­kets, cred­it rat­ings serve not on­ly as as­sess­ments of fi­nan­cial strength, but al­so as in­di­ca­tors of trans­paren­cy, gov­er­nance and in­vestor con­fi­dence.

"The with­draw­al of a rat­ing for a state en­ter­prise of such strate­gic im­por­tance may there­fore cre­ate un­cer­tain­ty among in­ter­na­tion­al lenders, in­vestors, LNG buy­ers and com­mer­cial coun­ter­par­ties,” said Seep­er­sad-Bachan, who is the cur­rent chair of Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny.

She said the de­vel­op­ment comes at a par­tic­u­lar­ly sen­si­tive time for the coun­try’s en­er­gy sec­tor, giv­en on­go­ing nat­ur­al gas sup­ply con­straints, the need for ma­jor up­stream in­vest­ments and geopo­lit­i­cal un­cer­tain­ty sur­round­ing fu­ture gas sup­ply projects, in­clud­ing Drag­on Gas.

"The ab­sence of an ac­tive in­ter­na­tion­al cred­it rat­ing could al­so po­ten­tial­ly in­crease fi­nanc­ing costs, tight­en lend­ing con­di­tions, and af­fect the con­fi­dence of up­stream and down­stream in­vestors who de­pend on long-term gas sup­ply and gas sale agree­ments sup­port­ed by NGC," said Seep­er­sad-Bachan.

McGuire raised sim­i­lar con­cerns to the for­mer min­is­ter as he ex­plained, "For NEC for ex­am­ple, time­ly main­te­nance of the port, chan­nel, and piers at Point Lisas is crit­i­cal to the ef­fi­cient func­tion­ing of a key part of the econ­o­my. If NEC must seek fi­nanc­ing on the open mar­ket for these projects, it is like­ly to face sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er bor­row­ing costs."

An­swer­ing a ques­tion in Par­lia­ment ear­li­er this month, Min­is­ter of En­er­gy, Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, dis­closed that the Na­tion­al En­er­gy Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NEC) paid a to­tal of US$60 mil­lion in div­i­dends to its par­ent com­pa­ny, the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC), be­tween Sep­tem­ber 2025 and Jan­u­ary 2026.

The US$60 mil­lion was orig­i­nal­ly des­ig­nat­ed as re­serves for es­sen­tial main­te­nance and in­fra­struc­ture projects, such as the dredg­ing and de­silt­ing of La Brea and Point Lisas har­bours.

"For­eign banks may al­so have lim­it­ed ap­petite for such lend­ing. That would leave greater re­liance on the lo­cal bank­ing sec­tor, like­ly in­clud­ing state-owned in­sti­tu­tions such as FCB and Re­pub­lic. Large-scale pub­lic bor­row­ing from lo­cal banks could crowd out pri­vate sec­tor cred­it and harm the wider econ­o­my," said Mc Guire.

NEC is a whol­ly owned sub­sidiary of NGC.

With­out nam­ing the com­pa­ny, the Cen­tral Bank in Jan­u­ary con­firmed that the Gov­ern­ment de­posit­ed tens of mil­lion of US dol­lars from state-owned com­pa­nies in­to T&T's for­eign re­serves.

McGuire al­so said the Moody’s pos­es se­ri­ous rep­u­ta­tion­al risks in the in­vest­ment sphere for T&T.

“It could al­so lead to a fur­ther sov­er­eign down­grade, un­der­min­ing in­vestor con­fi­dence and mak­ing it hard­er to se­cure fi­nanc­ing for the Gov­ern­ment’s am­bi­tious re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion pro­gramme,” he out­lined.

Econ­o­mist Ronald Ramkissoon sim­i­lar­ly not­ed rat­ings from agen­cies like Moody’s were im­por­tant for lo­cal busi­ness­es that en­gage in in­ter­na­tion­al ne­go­ti­a­tions.

“It’s al­ways a pos­i­tive thing for a com­pa­ny that wants to do in­ter­na­tion­al busi­ness to be rat­ed by one of these in­ter­na­tion­al agen­cies,” said Ramkissoon, adding “but if a com­pa­ny wants to do in­ter­na­tion­al busi­ness, then the in­ter­na­tion­al for­eign in­vestors and sup­pli­ers, and so on, would want to know that it is deal­ing with a par­tic­u­lar­ly rep­utable com­pa­ny, and if that is miss­ing, they can have ques­tions.”

For­mer UNC MP Rush­ton Paray, who had al­so re­cent­ly ques­tioned the NGC’s in­crease in the price of nat­ur­al gas to T&T's light in­dus­tri­al and com­mer­cial (LIC) com­pa­nies, al­so raised con­cerns about the Moody's is­sue and its wider im­pact on the econ­o­my.

"NGC rat­ings be­ing with­drawn by Moody’s is not a rou­tine house­keep­ing mat­ter. It does not mean NGC has de­fault­ed, but it does mean the pub­lic has lost one ma­jor in­de­pen­dent win­dow in­to the fi­nan­cial health of one of the most im­por­tant state com­pa­nies in T&T," Paray said.

"NGC is not an or­di­nary com­pa­ny. It sits at the cen­tre of our nat­ur­al gas econ­o­my. It buys gas, sells gas, sup­ports Point Lisas, in­flu­ences LNG de­ci­sions, and re­mains close­ly tied to the State. When a com­pa­ny like that stops par­tic­i­pat­ing in a rat­ings process, the coun­try has a right to ask why.”

He said this sit­u­a­tion al­so raised ques­tions con­cern­ing trans­paren­cy with­in the state-owned en­ti­ty.

"A with­drawn rat­ing may avoid a bad head­line to­day, but it cre­ates a big­ger con­fi­dence prob­lem to­mor­row. In­vestors, banks, sup­pli­ers, work­ers, down­stream com­pa­nies and cit­i­zens all de­pend on trust in NGC’s strength and trans­paren­cy. This is big­ger than Moody’s. This is about pub­lic con­fi­dence in the man­age­ment of T&T’s en­er­gy back­bone," said Paray.

A for­mer se­nior ex­ec­u­tive at the NGC, who spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, could not un­der­stand the the com­pa­ny’s claim that the move was a "strate­gic re­align­ment" as it does not align with good gov­er­nance, fi­nan­cial prac­tices or fidu­cia­ry man­age­ment. He ex­plained that it was im­por­tant to main­tain trans­paren­cy in gov­er­nance at NGC, a ma­jor state-owned en­er­gy en­ter­prise in T&T, to main­tain in­vestor con­fi­dence.

He ex­plained that shar­ing and pub­li­ca­tion of nec­es­sary in­for­ma­tion with rat­ing agen­cies is cru­cial for in­vestor trust.

In its re­sponse to the Moody’s news re­lease, NGC said it does not con­sid­er the pre­vi­ous­ly as­signed sub-in­vest­ment grade rat­ing by Moody’s to be an ac­cu­rate re­flec­tion of its stand­alone cred­it pro­file.

“NGC’s fi­nan­cial po­si­tion, op­er­at­ing mod­el, and risk char­ac­ter­is­tics are, in man­age­ment’s view, more con­sis­tent with an in­vest­ment grade stand­ing, sup­port­ed by its earn­ings pro­file, liq­uid­i­ty, and debt ser­vice ca­pac­i­ty.

“The de­ci­sion of the com­pa­ny to re­align was with a view to achieve such a rat­ing.”

NGC dis­closed in its news re­lease on Fri­day that it had added Fitch Rat­ings to its in­ter­na­tion­al rat­ing agen­cies, "re­flect­ing its com­mit­ment to en­sur­ing that its cred­it as­sess­ment frame­work is aligned with glob­al best prac­tices and sup­ports trans­par­ent recog­ni­tion of its fi­nan­cial and op­er­at­ing strength."