GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

In his 2026 bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo un­veiled a com­pre­hen­sive en­er­gy strat­e­gy de­signed to se­cure T&T’s eco­nom­ic fu­ture.

Em­pha­sis­ing the cen­tral role of oil and gas, Tan­coo out­lined a mul­ti-pronged ap­proach to strength­en pro­duc­tion, at­tract for­eign in­vest­ment, cre­ate jobs, and ac­cel­er­ate the coun­try’s tran­si­tion to re­new­able en­er­gy.

The min­is­ter high­light­ed re­cent gains in crude oil pro­duc­tion, which rose from 52,357 to 55,257 bar­rels per day be­tween April and Au­gust 2025—an in­crease of near­ly 3,000 bar­rels. This growth was dri­ven by bpTT, EOG Re­sources, and Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um, sup­port­ed by the Men­to De­vel­op­ment project, which achieved first oil in May. Her­itage is ex­pand­ing its drilling cam­paign, while Peren­co’s ac­qui­si­tion of shal­low-wa­ter as­sets from bpTT and Wood­side is ex­pect­ed to fur­ther en­hance out­put from ma­ture fields.

Nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion al­so climbed, from 2.41 to 2.73 bil­lion cu­bic feet per day be­tween April and May, large­ly due to bpTT’s Cypre Phase 1 and the Men­to field, with Phase 2 of Cypre ex­pect­ed to boost sup­ply fur­ther.

In­vestor con­fi­dence mir­rors pro­duc­tion gains, with for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment (FDI) in up­stream en­er­gy pro­ject­ed at US$2.2 bil­lion for 2025, ris­ing to US$2.5 bil­lion in 2026. The coun­try’s off­shore po­ten­tial was val­i­dat­ed dur­ing the deep­wa­ter bid round, which of­fered 26 blocks and closed with four bids, in­clud­ing a US$42.5 mil­lion pro­duc­tion shar­ing con­tract with Exxon­Mo­bil for Block TTUD-1.

Be­yond do­mes­tic pro­duc­tion, the gov­ern­ment is ex­pand­ing re­gion­al en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion with Grena­da, Suri­name, and Guyana, fo­cus­ing on joint ex­plo­ration, re­new­able en­er­gy de­vel­op­ment, and ca­pac­i­ty build­ing—po­si­tion­ing T&T as a re­gion­al en­er­gy leader.

Do­mes­ti­cal­ly, ne­go­ti­a­tions with Trinidad Steel Com­pa­ny for a new gas con­tract are un­der­way to restart steel pro­duc­tion, cre­ate jobs, and re­vive ex­ports, re­vi­tal­is­ing the in­dus­tri­al base.

While max­imis­ing oil and gas re­turns, the gov­ern­ment is al­so com­mit­ted to a sus­tain­able en­er­gy tran­si­tion, tar­get­ing a 15 per cent re­duc­tion in emis­sions by 2030. A ma­jor mile­stone was reached in Ju­ly when the 92.2-megawatt Brechin Cas­tle so­lar plant be­gan de­liv­er­ing green pow­er—set to be the largest so­lar fa­cil­i­ty in the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean.

Tan­coo said the gov­ern­ment is fi­nal­is­ing a re­new­able en­er­gy pol­i­cy and ad­vanc­ing wind en­er­gy de­vel­op­ment, iden­ti­fy­ing 2.75 gi­gawatts of on­shore and 32 gi­gawatts of off­shore wind po­ten­tial. An ex­pand­ed off­shore wind re­source as­sess­ment pro­gramme will pro­vide bank­able da­ta by 2026 to sup­port fu­ture in­vest­ment.

Look­ing fur­ther ahead, T&T is lay­ing the foun­da­tion for a green hy­dro­gen econ­o­my, aim­ing to scale 25 gi­gawatts of off­shore wind ca­pac­i­ty and pro­duce 1.5 mil­lion tonnes of hy­dro­gen an­nu­al­ly by 2044, with a long-term tar­get of four mil­lion tonnes by 2065.