GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment re­mains locked in ac­tive, high-lev­el dis­cus­sions with Nu­trien, one of the world's largest pro­duc­ers of ni­tro­gen-based fer­tilis­ers, and Methanex, the world's largest pro­duc­er and sup­pli­er of methanol, as it seeks to se­cure fu­ture in­vest­ment in T&T's en­er­gy sec­tor.

En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal con­firmed yes­ter­day the con­tin­u­ing talks, while re­main­ing guard­ed about spec­u­la­tion the gov­ern­ment is weigh­ing an ac­qui­si­tion of Nu­trien's lo­cal as­sets.

“All I can say with­out say­ing too much is that we have been in dis­cus­sions con­cern­ing their in­vest­ment and fu­ture in­vest­ments, and those dis­cus­sions con­tin­ue,” Mooni­lal stat­ed while speak­ing to mem­bers of the me­dia fol­low­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion of fi­nan­cial re­sults of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny which took place at the Hy­att Re­gency yes­ter­day.

Ad­dress­ing claims the Gov­ern­ment may pur­chase Nu­trien’s Point Lisas fa­cil­i­ty, he em­pha­sised ne­go­ti­a­tions re­main tight­ly held.

“Those dis­cus­sions are ex­treme­ly con­fi­den­tial at this stage, and we will dis­close much more in the com­ing days,” the min­is­ter said.

Nu­trien, the Cana­di­an crop nu­tri­ent pro­duc­er, ex­e­cut­ed a con­trolled shut­down of its mul­ti-plant ni­tro­gen com­plex in late 2025 fol­low­ing pro­tract­ed ne­go­ti­a­tions for a new nat­ur­al gas con­tract with state-owned Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny and port ac­cess dis­putes with the Na­tion­al En­er­gy Cor­po­ra­tion (NEC), a sub­sidiary of NGC.

The com­pa­ny has since eval­u­at­ed strate­gic al­ter­na­tives for its Point Lisas foot­print, in­clud­ing a po­ten­tial di­vest­ment.

Sim­i­lar­ly, Cana­da's Methanex has had to re­cal­i­brate its lo­cal pro­duc­tion, man­ag­ing out­put con­straints be­tween its Ti­tan and At­las fa­cil­i­ties amid tight do­mes­tic nat­ur­al gas cur­tail­ments across the petro­chem­i­cal cor­ri­dor. Methanex an­nounced the in­def­i­nite idling of its Ti­tan Methanol plant on June 29.

While ne­go­ti­a­tions con­tin­ue, Mooni­lal high­light­ed pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ments in up­stream sup­ply from Touch­stone Ex­plo­ration.

He not­ed the com­pa­ny has im­proved its fi­nan­cial stand­ing and ben­e­fit­ed from stream­lined ap­provals through the en­er­gy hub, en­abling it to in­crease nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion and ex­pand crude oil op­er­a­tions.

Speak­ing on en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty and growth dur­ing his speech, Mooni­lal said one of the most im­por­tant de­vel­op­ments dur­ing the year was the con­tin­ued re­cov­ery of gas sup­ply, not­ing that gas sup­ply has start­ed to im­prove, with new pro­duc­tion from Cypre and Men­to com­ing on­stream dur­ing the year.

He added that NGC has al­so con­tin­ued to build its up­stream po­si­tion, strength­en­ing its abil­i­ty to se­cure ad­di­tion­al gas for the coun­try and sup­port the long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the en­er­gy sec­tor.

"That strat­e­gy took an­oth­er im­por­tant step this month when NGC signed agree­ments with bpTT to ac­quire a 20 per cent par­tic­i­pat­ing in­ter­est in the Block 5(b) Pro­duc­tion Shar­ing Con­tract, with­in which the Man­akin Field is sit­u­at­ed," he added.

The min­is­ter said work does not end when gas reach­es the beach.

"We must en­sure that our LNG and petro­chem­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture is ready to re­ceive it, process it and con­vert it in­to ex­ports, for­eign ex­change, jobs and na­tion­al rev­enue," he said, adding that the min­istry is keep­ing a close fo­cus on the re­li­a­bil­i­ty and util­i­sa­tion of At­lantic LNG and on pre­serv­ing the op­tions avail­able for its fu­ture ca­pac­i­ty.

"We must en­sure that the op­er­at­ing trains per­form as ef­fi­cient­ly as pos­si­ble and that any de­ci­sion re­gard­ing ad­di­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty, in­clud­ing a pos­si­ble restart of Train 1, is guid­ed by gas avail­abil­i­ty, com­mer­cial vi­a­bil­i­ty and the na­tion­al in­ter­est," he added.

Re­fin­ery prospects

Con­cur­rent­ly, the prospec­tive restart of the idled Pointe-a-Pierre oil re­fin­ery has re-emerged as a ma­jor fo­cus.

Mooni­lal point­ed to shift­ing glob­al and hemi­spher­ic dy­nam­ics, ex­plain­ing that ca­pac­i­ty lim­i­ta­tions among Unit­ed States Gulf Coast re­fin­ers have gen­er­at­ed in­creased re­gion­al de­mand for fin­ished fu­els.

“We have al­so in­di­cat­ed be­fore that the re­fin­ery is now the hot top­ic, and we have much more in­ter­est now sim­ply be­cause the land­scape of re­fin­ing has changed,” Mooni­lal said not­ing, “This is now the flash­point of the plan­et in terms of oil pro­duc­tion be­cause our neigh­bours are high pro­duc­ers—both Guyana and Venezuela. Suri­name, of course, have ex­cit­ing news with their gas finds... so I an­tic­i­pate that we will have a de­mand for re­fined prod­ucts.”

Mooni­lal con­firmed that T&T is re­view­ing ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est and host­ing tech­ni­cal teams from Guyana, Suri­name, In­dia and Sau­di Ara­bia.

He in­di­cat­ed that with tar­get­ed cap­i­tal in­vest­ment, spe­cif­ic units could re­turn to ser­vice with­in six months to sup­ply ini­tial prod­ucts be­fore broad­en­ing the op­er­a­tional slate.

Ad­dress­ing con­cerns over in­ter­na­tion­al safe­ty stan­dards, Mooni­lal main­tained that prospec­tive op­er­a­tors face strin­gent as­set in­tegri­ty eval­u­a­tions to en­sure past in­dus­tri­al fail­ures are not re­peat­ed.

“We want to en­sure that the play­ers have an out­stand­ing record in health and safe­ty, and they want to en­sure that the re­fin­ery it­self—the as­set in­tegri­ty—is con­sid­ered strong­ly,” Mooni­lal stressed stat­ing, “I want to tell the coun­try that the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery will not be an­oth­er Ni­Quan sit­u­a­tion. It will not be.”

The en­er­gy min­is­ter al­so dis­missed claims that Kurt Ram­lal, chair­man of Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Ltd was forced to re­sign.

He said it was re­port­ed to him "this morn­ing (yes­ter­day)" that Ram­lal was still sit­ting in the chair.