GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Ltd and the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), St Au­gus­tine have signed a MOU for col­lab­o­ra­tive re­search and de­vel­op­ment, com­menc­ing a pi­o­neer­ing ini­tia­tive with­in the en­er­gy sec­tor.

Among the ob­jec­tives in­clude dri­ving in­no­va­tion and sus­tain­abil­i­ty in the oil and gas in­dus­try, fos­ter­ing joint re­search projects and knowl­edge-ex­change ini­tia­tives, ad­dress­ing chal­lenges and shap­ing the fu­ture of the en­er­gy sec­tor and ex­plor­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties in sus­tain­able en­er­gy so­lu­tions.

The event fea­tured re­marks from key stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Her­itage and UWI, high­light­ing the col­lab­o­ra­tion's strate­gic im­por­tance and po­ten­tial im­pact on the en­er­gy land­scape.

Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Ltd Erik Kesku­la who spoke at the sign­ing which took place at UWI's prin­ci­pal's of­fice yes­ter­day, said the event was a piv­otal mo­ment for Her­itage, be­ing the first time it en­tered in­to a for­mal col­lab­o­ra­tion with the UWI.

"This part­ner­ship sym­bol­is­es the fu­sion of knowl­edge and prac­tice, in­no­va­tion and ap­pli­ca­tion as we em­bark on a shared mis­sion to dri­ve progress and pros­per­i­ty in the en­er­gy sec­tor.

"Her­itage like many oth­er glob­al oil and gas com­pa­nies, recog­nis­es the val­ue of and lever­ag­ing the col­lec­tive strengths that we have along with those from the Uni­ver­si­ty of West In­dies to tack­le some of the most press­ing chal­lenges of fac­ing the en­er­gy sec­tor to­day. Whether it be in the realm of ex­plo­ration, pro­duc­tion, re­new­able en­er­gy in­te­gra­tion, en­vi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship, tech­nol­o­gy or in­no­va­tion," Kesku­la said.

He added the part­ner­ship will al­so serve as a cat­a­lyst for trans­for­ma­tive change, con­tin­u­ous ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing which are in­creas­ing­ly viewed as im­per­a­tive to the core of the busi­ness of oil and gas com­pa­nies op­er­at­ing in to­day's high cost high risk en­vi­ron­ments.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he said Her­itage an­tic­i­pates the im­ple­men­ta­tion of so­lu­tions re­lat­ed to busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ties in oil and gas ex­plo­ration, de­vel­op­ment of mar­ket­ing and sus­tain­able en­er­gy so­lu­tions.

"By join­ing forces and har­ness­ing the pow­er of ed­u­ca­tion, re­search and in­no­va­tion, we have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­de­fine the bound­aries of what's pos­si­ble with­in our sec­tor, and be­come lead­ers in the re­gion for de­car­bon­is­ing our op­er­a­tions," Kesku­la added.

Pro-vice chan­cel­lor and cam­pus prin­ci­pal Rose-Marie An­toine, who al­so spoke, echoed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments as Kesku­la, not­ing the new, on­go­ing de­mand in the mar­ket for low car­bon and clean­er prod­ucts.

She said a bal­ance must be struck with utilils­ing nat­ur­al re­sources and sus­tain­abil­i­ty

Her­itage said this ini­tia­tive was al­so in keep­ing with the com­pa­ny's eco­nom­ic, so­cial and gov­er­nance (ESG) strat­e­gy, em­pha­sis­ing ca­pac­i­ty build­ing, eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment sup­port and the em­pow­er­ment of fu­ture lead­ers.