GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

The En­er­gy Cham­ber of T&T has wel­comed BP’s de­ci­sion to as­sign a 20 per cent stake in the Man­akin block to the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC), de­scrib­ing the move as an im­por­tant step for­ward for the de­vel­op­ment of the cross-bor­der Cocuina-Man­akin gas field and for this coun­try’s long-term en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty.

The trans­ac­tion gives NGC an eq­ui­ty po­si­tion across the en­tire uni­tised Cocuina-Man­akin field for the first time, the cham­ber said in a re­lease yes­ter­day.

While NGC al­ready held a 20 per cent in­ter­est in the Venezue­lan Cocuina sec­tion af­ter re­ceiv­ing a 20-year li­cence from Venezuela in Ju­ly 2024, it pre­vi­ous­ly had no own­er­ship stake in the Man­akin block, which lies on the T&T side of the mar­itime bound­ary and is op­er­at­ed by bp.

The PM said the agree­ment would strength­en T&T’s po­si­tion in the project and en­sure greater na­tion­al par­tic­i­pa­tion in one of the coun­try’s most sig­nif­i­cant up­com­ing gas de­vel­op­ments.

The Cham­ber said the deal aligns NGC’s own­er­ship in­ter­ests more close­ly with the dis­tri­b­u­tion of gas re­sources with­in the field.

The uni­tised Cocuina-Man­akin reser­voir is es­ti­mat­ed to con­tain ap­prox­i­mate­ly one tril­lion cu­bic feet of nat­ur­al gas, with rough­ly two-thirds of the re­serves lo­cat­ed on the Man­akin side in T&T wa­ters.

BP and NGC have al­so agreed to mar­ket 70 per cent of the gas pro­duced from Cocuina-Man­akin to At­lantic LNG, with the re­main­ing 30 per cent ear­marked for the do­mes­tic petro­chem­i­cal sec­tor.

BP holds a 45 per cent stake in At­lantic LNG, with Shell hold­ing 45 per cent and NGC hold­ing the re­main­ing ten per cent.

“This is a wel­come and log­i­cal next step for one of the re­gion’s most im­por­tant cross-bor­der gas de­vel­op­ments. Cocuina-Man­akin has huge po­ten­tial, and it is good to see NGC se­cur­ing an eq­ui­ty po­si­tion that re­flects the true bal­ance of the re­source, with the ma­jor­i­ty sit­ting on the Trinidad side. Bring­ing this field in­to pro­duc­tion is the kind of col­lab­o­ra­tion this coun­try needs to keep gas flow­ing in­to our LNG and petro­chem­i­cal plants and sus­tain the in­dus­tri­al base at Point Lisas,” the cham­ber added.

It added, this progress is al­so a pos­i­tive step for Venezuela, of­fer­ing a prac­ti­cal route to mon­e­tise strand­ed cross-bor­der gas re­serves along­side T&T’s pro­cess­ing in­fra­struc­ture.

“Cross-bor­der gas de­vel­op­ment of this kind ben­e­fits both coun­tries: Venezuela gains a vi­able path to bring its re­sources to mar­ket, while T&T se­cures the feed­stock our LNG and petro­chem­i­cal sec­tors de­pend on,” the cham­ber stressed.

The Cocuina-Man­akin field lies across the mar­itime bound­ary be­tween T&T and Venezuela, with the Cocuina sec­tion form­ing part of Venezuela’s un­de­vel­oped Platafor­ma Deltana project.

A fi­nal in­vest­ment de­ci­sion on the field is ex­pect­ed by the end of the year. 

En­er­gy ex­pert and for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan said the an­nounce­ment of agree­ments to ad­vance de­vel­op­ment of the Man­akin-Cocuina cross-bor­der gas field is a pos­i­tive step for T&T’s en­er­gy sec­tor, but cau­tions that the project alone would not be enough to re­solve the coun­try’s long-stand­ing nat­ur­al gas short­age.

She told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day the agree­ment is an im­por­tant de­vel­op­ment that re­stores a com­mer­cial path­way for the project fol­low­ing un­cer­tain­ty cre­at­ed by the re­vo­ca­tion of a Unit­ed States sanc­tions li­cence that had pre­vi­ous­ly al­lowed ne­go­ti­a­tions and de­vel­op­ment ac­tiv­i­ty in­volv­ing the Venezue­lan por­tion of the reser­voir.

“The Man­akin–Cocuina an­nounce­ment ef­fec­tive­ly re­stores the com­mer­cial path­way for de­vel­op­ment of the uni­tised cross-bor­der gas field fol­low­ing the ear­li­er re­vo­ca­tion of the US com­pa­ny-spe­cif­ic OFAC sanc­tions li­cence un­der which BP and the NGC were au­tho­rised to ne­go­ti­ate and de­vel­op the Venezue­lan por­tion of the reser­voir notwith­stand­ing US sanc­tions. The new agree­ments, there­fore, re­move a ma­jor com­mer­cial ob­sta­cle and al­low BP to move to­wards a fi­nal in­vest­ment de­ci­sion,” Seep­er­sad-Bachan ex­plained.

How­ev­er, she warned against view­ing the project as a so­lu­tion to all of the sec­tor’s prob­lems, say­ing the field should be re­gard­ed as an im­por­tant medi­um-term source of sup­ply rather than a de­vel­op­ment ca­pa­ble of ful­ly restor­ing the coun­try’s en­er­gy sec­tor to peak op­er­at­ing lev­els.

“With proven re­serves of ap­prox­i­mate­ly one tril­lion cu­bic feet, the field should be viewed as an im­por­tant medi­um-term source of sup­ply rather than a com­plete so­lu­tion to the coun­try’s nat­ur­al gas short­age. Even when com­bined with ex­ist­ing projects cur­rent­ly un­der de­vel­op­ment, pro­ject­ed gas pro­duc­tion is un­like­ly to re­store both the LNG and petro­chem­i­cal sec­tors to op­ti­mum op­er­at­ing lev­els si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly,” she added.

She point­ed to sev­er­al op­por­tu­ni­ties, in­clud­ing BP’s Ca­lyp­so de­vel­op­ment, Exxon­Mo­bil’s ul­tra-deep­wa­ter acreage and fur­ther ex­plo­ration ac­tiv­i­ties that could help se­cure larg­er long-term sup­plies.

“T&T must con­tin­ue to ac­cel­er­ate ex­plo­ration, ap­praisal and de­vel­op­ment of larg­er dis­cov­er­ies, in­clud­ing Ca­lyp­so, Exxon­Mo­bil’s ul­tra-deep acreage and ad­di­tion­al ex­plo­ration, if it is to se­cure the long-term gas sup­plies re­quired to sus­tain in­dus­tri­al pro­duc­tion, eco­nom­ic growth and for­eign ex­change earn­ings,” she ad­vised.