Asha Javeed

Lead ed­i­tor in­ves­ti­ga­tions

asha.javeed@guardian.co.tt

Mark Lo­quan, the pres­i­dent of the whol­ly state-owned Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) is step­ping down from the com­pa­ny when his con­tract comes to an end on Au­gust 31, 2024.

In a news re­lease yes­ter­day, the NGC said that Lo­quan would not re­new his con­tract with NGC and that his ap­point­ment as a di­rec­tor of NGC and its af­fil­i­ates will al­so cease.

Lo­quan, 63, as­sumed du­ties at NGC in Sep­tem­ber 2016.

Lo­quan, who has over 40 years ex­pe­ri­ence in the petro­chem­i­cal in­dus­try, be­gan his ca­reer as a process en­gi­neer. He was a for­mer pres­i­dent of Yara Trinidad be­fore he de­part­ed to take up the po­si­tion as pres­i­dent of Up­stream Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment-An­go­la/Sub-Sa­hara Africa at Yara In­ter­na­tion­al and then chief ex­ec­u­tive at Yara Pil­bara in Aus­tralia.

In its state­ment, the NGC not­ed that Lo­quan joined at a time when the glob­al en­er­gy in­dus­try was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing sig­nif­i­cant dis­rup­tion and trans­for­ma­tion. In ad­di­tion, the fo­cus on a low-car­bon fu­ture was build­ing in promi­nence.

“Through his ef­forts, Mark helped to so­lid­i­fy NGC’s po­si­tion as a lead­ing con­trib­u­tor across the en­er­gy val­ue chain, ad­vo­cat­ing for greater col­lab­o­ra­tion across the lo­cal en­er­gy sec­tor in ar­eas such as safe­ty, lo­cal con­tent, sup­ply chain man­age­ment, gas op­ti­mi­sa­tion, and en­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy. He has been at the fore­front of NGC’s ef­forts to move be­yond nat­ur­al gas to en­com­pass oth­er forms of clean en­er­gy, in­vest­ing and part­ner­ing to build a port­fo­lio of en­er­gy as­sets and projects that sup­port the glob­al tran­si­tion to a low-car­bon fu­ture,” the com­pa­ny not­ed.

Dur­ing his tenure at NGC, Lo­quan has had to man­age gas cur­tail­ment is­sues and deal with ex­pired con­tracts.

Un­der his watch, NGC ex­pand­ed its role and got big­ger stake in At­lantic LNG busi­ness as a re­sult of the re­struc­tur­ing of the com­pa­ny.

On Wednes­day, as part of his com­mit­ment to see the com­pa­ny be­come more sus­tain­able, the NGC launched NGC Green which will fo­cus on in­vest­ments in re­new­able en­er­gy. To that end, the NGC will take a 30 per cent eq­ui­ty stake in the lo­cal so­lar ini­tia­tive, Project Lara.

This month, the NGC post­ed af­ter-tax prof­its of $2 bil­lion for 2022.

“Mark has played an in­deli­ble role in the sus­tained growth and de­vel­op­ment of NGC. As pres­i­dent, he has lever­aged his glob­al mind­set, strate­gic think­ing, and com­mit­ment to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment to en­sure that NGC re­mained fo­cused on de­liv­er­ing sus­tain­able val­ue for Trinidad and To­ba­go, with­in the con­text of an of­ten-dis­rup­tive glob­al en­er­gy in­dus­try. We have val­ued his lead­er­ship style, his sup­port for peo­ple, and his com­mit­ment to Trinidad and To­ba­go,” said NGC chair­man Joseph Khan, in the com­pa­ny's news re­lease.

The com­pa­ny said as it be­gins to look for a suc­ces­sor, Lo­quan will con­tin­ue to work with the board and lead­er­ship team to ex­e­cute NGC’s strate­gic plan. Once a suc­ces­sor is named, Lo­quan will work with the new pres­i­dent to en­sure a smooth tran­si­tion.

“On be­half of the board of di­rec­tors, I thank Mark for his lead­er­ship and his con­tri­bu­tion to mak­ing NGC one of the lead­ing com­pa­nies in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” said Khan.