En­er­gy Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal has said news that first gas has been de­liv­ered from the Men­to de­vel­op­ment is wel­comed.

In a short state­ment the En­er­gy Min­is­ter said, "Con­grat­u­la­tions to BP and EOG on first gas from Men­to. In the con­text of the nat­ur­al gas short­age we find our­selves in, any new pro­duc­tion is wel­comed. First gas from Men­to rep­re­sents the cul­mi­na­tion of many years of work by bpTT and EOG in­clud­ing seis­mic sur­veys done some 10 years ago which led to an ex­plo­ration well that was drilled in Q1 2020."

Dr Mooni­lal con­tin­ued, "Men­to al­so rep­re­sents the syn­er­gies that come when up­stream com­pa­nies col­lab­o­rate. We note that the col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween BP and EOG start­ed in 2011 and has now yield­ed four projects. This col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach to un­lock­ing nat­ur­al gas re­serves is some­thing the Gov­ern­ment wel­comes and en­cour­ages."

On Thurs­day bp Trinidad and To­ba­go (bpTT) an­nounced that the Men­to de­vel­op­ment has safe­ly de­liv­ered first gas through con­nec­tion of the ini­tial dis­cov­ery well.

Both for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and for­mer min­is­ter of en­er­gy, Stu­art Young, is­sued mes­sages on Thurs­day con­grat­u­lat­ing the project part­ners on the an­nounce­ment of first gas from Men­to.

On his Face­book page Row­ley said, “An­oth­er egg hatched,” not­ing that from the board­rooms in Lon­don to the TOF­CO fab­ri­ca­tion yard in La Brea, his ad­min­is­tra­tion worked as­sid­u­ous­ly to en­sure the suc­cess of this project. Stu­art Young played a crit­i­cal role in the re­al­i­sa­tion of this key en­er­gy sec­tor de­vel­op­ment,” he point­ed out.

Young said, “Con­grat­u­la­tions to EOG and bpTT. Men­to was a project that we ne­go­ti­at­ed and got done. Great to see the first gas pro­duc­tion.”

Men­to is a 50/50 joint ven­ture be­tween EOG Re­sources Trinidad Ltd (EOG) and bpTT, with EOG as the op­er­a­tor.

The de­vel­op­ment fea­tures a 12-slot, at­tend­ed fa­cil­i­ty that is lo­cat­ed in acreage joint­ly li­censed by bpTT and EOG off Trinidad’s south­east coast.

Men­to is one of BP’s 10 ma­jor projects ex­pect­ed to start up world­wide be­tween 2025 and 2027 that the en­er­gy com­pa­ny an­nounced ear­li­er this year as part of its strat­e­gy to grow its up­stream re­turns.

BP said pro­duc­tion from Men­to will make a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to­wards the 250,000 bar­rels of oil equiv­a­lent per day (boed) com­bined peak net pro­duc­tion ex­pect­ed from these 10 projects.

In the loal news re­lease an­nounc­ing the de­vel­op­ment, bpTT pres­i­dent David Camp­bell said: “I am proud to an­nounce first gas from Men­to with our part­ner EOG Re­sources Trinidad Ltd. For bpTT, this rep­re­sents our sec­ond start up this year and it is tan­gi­ble proof of the ben­e­fits of part­ner­ing with oth­ers to bring much need­ed gas in­to pro­duc­tion. The bpTT/EOG part­ner­ship is pro­gress­ing well as we con­tin­ue to work on our next joint ven­ture project Co­conut.”

The Co­conut nat­ur­al gas de­vel­op­ment is lo­cat­ed off the south­east coast of Trinidad in the Colum­bus Basin. The field was dis­cov­ered in 2005 and is al­so be­ing de­vel­oped as a joint ven­ture be­tween BP Trinidad and To­ba­go (bpTT) and EOG Re­sources Trinidad, with first gas pro­duc­tion ex­pect­ed in 2027.