Even as a new Gov­ern­ment has en­tered of­fice, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s en­er­gy sec­tor will con­tin­ue to be at the fore­front of na­tion­al at­ten­tion. This is un­der­scored by on­go­ing for­eign ex­change (forex) con­straints, the na­tion’s heavy re­liance on en­er­gy rev­enues to sup­port the na­tion­al bud­get, and the crit­i­cal role of the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund (HSF) in main­tain­ing eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty.

In this mo­ment of tran­si­tion, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Ex­trac­tive In­dus­tries Trans­paren­cy Ini­tia­tive (TTEITI) con­tin­ues to ad­vance trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty and good gov­er­nance across the en­er­gy and min­ing sec­tors. With over a decade of in­de­pen­dent re­port­ing and stake­hold­er en­gage­ment, the TTEITI has pub­lished 11 re­ports and rec­on­ciled ap­prox­i­mate­ly TT$180 bil­lion in pay­ments made by ex­trac­tive com­pa­nies with the gov­ern­ment’s de­clared re­ceipts, pro­vid­ing in­de­pen­dent ver­i­fi­ca­tion of rev­enue earned and en­sur­ing that all funds are prop­er­ly ac­count­ed for. The TTEITI has al­so host­ed re­gion­al fo­rums with our Cari­com neigh­bours, in­clud­ing Suri­name and Guyana, to fos­ter knowl­edge shar­ing, strength­en re­gion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion, and pro­mote best prac­tices in ex­trac­tive sec­tor gov­er­nance.

Im­por­tant­ly, the TTEITI con­tin­ues to serve as a vi­tal link be­tween gov­ern­ment, civ­il so­ci­ety, and in­dus­try for col­lab­o­ra­tion, sup­port­ing pol­i­cy­mak­ers and cit­i­zens with cred­i­ble da­ta to in­form their choic­es and strength­en their calls for sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment. Al­though launched ear­li­er this year, The State of the Ex­trac­tive Sec­tor Re­port 2024 pro­vides up­dat­ed in­for­ma­tion on en­er­gy sec­tor tax pay­ments and of­fers key rec­om­men­da­tions to strength­en tax col­lec­tion, as well as au­dit and as­sur­ance sys­tems, mak­ing it a crit­i­cal tool for in­formed pol­i­cy­mak­ing and im­proved re­source gov­er­nance. As the na­tion nav­i­gates mount­ing eco­nom­ic pres­sures, the re­port pro­vides crit­i­cal in­sights in­to the sec­tor’s tra­jec­to­ry, high­light­ing per­sis­tent struc­tur­al chal­lenges while un­der­scor­ing the con­tin­ued im­por­tance of open da­ta and ev­i­dence-based de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

The eco­nom­ic re­al­i­ty: overview of rev­enue and pro­duc­tion

T&T’s eco­nom­ic foun­da­tion has long rest­ed on the pil­lars of oil, gas, petro­chem­i­cals, and min­ing. In the re­port, 52 oil and gas en­ti­ties, in­clud­ing sev­en state-owned en­ter­pris­es (SOEs), par­tic­i­pat­ed in the rec­on­cil­i­a­tion ex­er­cise, con­tribut­ing a rec­on­ciled to­tal of TT$31,063,135,040 in pay­ments to the gov­ern­ment for 2022.

The In­de­pen­dent Ad­min­is­tra­tor (IA) iden­ti­fied a vari­ance of TT$7.7 mil­lion be­tween the pay­ments re­port­ed by the oil and gas com­pa­nies and the ac­tu­al re­ceipts by the gov­ern­ment. This dis­crep­an­cy was at­trib­uted to for­eign ex­change fluc­tu­a­tions. Im­por­tant­ly, there were no uniden­ti­fied dif­fer­ences, mean­ing all rev­enues were ac­cu­rate­ly ac­count­ed for.

While the rec­on­cil­i­a­tion ex­er­cise cov­ered fis­cal 2022, in or­der to pro­vide the pub­lic with up-to-date in­for­ma­tion, the TTEITI al­so in­clud­ed unau­dit­ed da­ta up to De­cem­ber 2024. As of De­cem­ber 2024, the av­er­age price of WTI oil was US$70.12 per bar­rel, re­flect­ing a mar­gin­al de­cline from US$71.90 per bar­rel dur­ing the same pe­ri­od in 2023. Sim­i­lar­ly, Hen­ry Hub nat­ur­al gas prices av­er­aged US$3.01 per mil­lion British ther­mal units (mmB­tu) in De­cem­ber 2024, up from US$2.52 per mmB­tu in the same pe­ri­od of 2023. As of March 2025, WTI crude oil was priced at US$68.24 per bar­rel, while Hen­ry Hub nat­ur­al gas stood at US$4.12 per mmB­tu (see charts 1 and 2).

From fis­cal year 2011 to De­cem­ber 2024, the gov­ern­ment col­lect­ed a to­tal of $29.3 bil­lion in roy­al­ties, with a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease fol­low­ing the 2017 roy­al­ty rate ad­just­ment to 12.5 per cent. Roy­al­ties de­clined by 20.92 per cent, from $3.8 bil­lion in 2022 to ap­prox­i­mate­ly TT$3 bil­lion in 2023. For fis­cal year 2024, the gov­ern­ment has re­ceived around $2 bil­lion in roy­al­ties, with the three largest con­trib­u­tors be­ing bpTT, Her­itage and Peren­co, pay­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly $1 bil­lion, $712 mil­lion and $128 mil­lion re­spec­tive­ly.

Be­tween Oc­to­ber 1, 2024 and May 16, 2025, the Gov­ern­ment re­ceived TT $2 bil­lion in roy­al­ties with bpTT and Her­itage, pay­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly $1.2 bil­lion and $386 mil­lion re­spec­tive­ly. Dur­ing this pe­ri­od, Gov­ern­ment al­so re­ceived $3 bil­lion in share of prof­it from pro­duc­tion shar­ing con­tracts with Shell and EOG Re­sources pay­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly $1.9 bil­lion and $663 mil­lion re­spec­tive­ly. It is im­por­tant to note that these fig­ures are unau­dit­ed (see chart 3).

As it re­lates to min­ing/quar­ry­ing, five en­ti­ties, in­clud­ing two state-owned en­ter­pris­es (SOEs), par­tic­i­pat­ed in the rec­on­cil­i­a­tion ex­er­cise for 2022, con­tribut­ing a rec­on­ciled to­tal of $7,654,037 in pay­ments to the gov­ern­ment. The min­ing com­pa­nies in­volved were Trinidad Ce­ment Ltd, Her­mitage Lime­stone Ltd, Lake As­phalt of Trinidad and To­ba­go (1978), Es­tate Man­age­ment and Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment, and Readymix Ltd.

In terms of oil and gas pro­duc­tion, the In­de­pen­dent Ad­min­is­tra­tor (IA) rec­on­ciled oil pro­duc­tion to 21,127,220 bar­rels for 2022. Gas pro­duc­tion was sim­i­lar­ly rec­on­ciled to 947,749,899 mil­lion cu­bic feet for the same year. For the min­ing sec­tor, min­er­al pro­duc­tion rec­on­cil­i­a­tion re­sult­ed in a to­tal of 1,824,475 cu­bic yards in 2022.

Giv­en en­er­gy price volatil­i­ty and the de­cline in roy­al­ties, the ques­tion on every­one’s mind is clear: how will the na­tion adapt and en­sure a sus­tain­able fu­ture for its peo­ple, par­tic­u­lar­ly as its once-boom­ing oil and gas sec­tor faces an un­cer­tain road ahead? The gov­ern­ment has out­lined plans for re­gion­al en­er­gy sec­tor co­op­er­a­tion and tack­ling il­le­gal quar­ry­ing. The TTEITI through its re­gion­al out­reach ef­forts with Suri­name, Guyana and Grena­da and oth­er Cari­com coun­tries has pro­mot­ed trans­par­ent and ac­count­able re­source gov­er­nance and has host­ed sev­er­al work­shops aimed at pro­mot­ing best prac­tice in quar­ry re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and tax col­lec­tion.

A vi­sion for the fu­ture

T&T’s eco­nom­ic well-be­ing re­mains deeply tied to the ex­trac­tive in­dus­tries. The de­cline in rev­enue presents both a chal­lenge and an op­por­tu­ni­ty, an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­think how the coun­try man­ages its nat­ur­al re­sources, boosts up­stream in­vest­ment, in­vests in more re­new­able pow­er projects, and im­proves gov­er­nance struc­tures. As the coun­try seeks to de­ter­mine whether these ini­tia­tives will pro­vide short, medi­um or long-term eco­nom­ic gain, trans­paren­cy re­mains a crit­i­cal fac­tor. The EITI frame­work con­tin­ues to be the glob­al stan­dard for en­sur­ing that the ex­trac­tive sec­tor is man­aged in an open and ac­count­able man­ner.