An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Sev­er­al cham­bers have ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment with the two OFAC spe­cial li­cences for the Drag­on and Cocuina fields which have been re­voked by the Unit­ed States Gov­ern­ment.  The En­er­gy Cham­ber of Trinidad and To­ba­go, in a news re­lease yes­ter­day, said it was not un­ex­pect­ed giv­en the pre­vi­ous can­cel­la­tion of oth­er gen­er­al and spe­cial li­cences for com­pa­nies work­ing in Venezuela.

It not­ed that the im­por­ta­tion of pipeline gas from Venezuela for pro­cess­ing and on­ward sales to in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets as ei­ther LNG or petro­chem­i­cals re­mains a sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ty for T&T.  

Fur­ther, the En­er­gy Cham­ber in­di­cat­ed that it is im­por­tant that the gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to en­gage ac­tive­ly with both the gov­ern­ments of the Unit­ed States and Venezuela to find a mech­a­nism to pur­sue this op­por­tu­ni­ty.  

At the same time, the body said there are sig­nif­i­cant op­por­tu­ni­ties to de­vel­op nat­ur­al gas fields with­in T&T’s ex­clu­sive eco­nom­ic zone and these must al­so be pur­sued ac­tive­ly and ur­gent­ly.  

“There are sev­er­al fields, in­clud­ing Men­to, Co­conut, Gin­ger, and Man­a­tee, that are cur­rent­ly be­ing de­vel­oped and oth­ers, in­clud­ing Ca­lyp­so, Black­jack, and Onyx where com­pa­nies are work­ing to­wards tak­ing a fi­nal in­vest­ment de­ci­sion. All of these op­por­tu­ni­ties should be pur­sued to help main­tain and in­crease Trinidad & To­ba­go’s up­stream gas pro­duc­tion,” the cham­ber out­lined.

Pres­i­dent of the San Fer­nan­do Greater Cham­ber (SFGCC) Ki­ran Singh com­ment­ing on the news said it was very dis­con­cert­ing.  

“Our econ­o­my is en­er­gy-dri­ven. We de­pend on gas ex­ports more than oil for ex­ter­nal rev­enue to meet cap­i­tal and re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture. The petro­chem­i­cal sec­tor, while it is a sig­nif­i­cant con­trib­u­tor to forex gen­er­a­tion, can­not sus­tain the fis­cal de­mands of the econ­o­my. We are heav­i­ly de­pen­dent on for­eign in­puts for all sec­tors of the econ­o­my. It can­not be busi­ness as usu­al,” Singh stat­ed.

He stressed di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion must take cen­tre stage and the mid-year re­view and the next bud­get must ad­dress al­ter­na­tive rev­enue-gen­er­at­ing streams.  

This is not a time to pan­ic Singh’s ad­vice but said the gov­ern­ment must care­ful­ly strate­gise a fi­nan­cial plan for the im­me­di­ate fu­ture.  

“The gov­ern­ment has been util­is­ing some fru­gal eco­nom­ic means to man­age our lim­it­ed re­sources. No doubt, this will have to con­tin­ue in­def­i­nite­ly with a se­ri­ous pri­ori­tis­ing of ex­pense man­age­ment. We do have a forex buffer of sev­er­al months in the Her­itage Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund. This fund may have to be tapped in­to while the gov­ern­ment en­gages the US in fur­ther gas ex­plo­ration ne­go­ti­a­tions,” Singh added.