Dr Joseph Ishmael Khan has assumed the chairmanship of the National Gas Company of T&T at an “exciting” time.
Khan was appointed the NGC’s Chairman in September after initially being appointed to the board as a director in February.
And in those five months, the NGC has been at the centre of two significant announcements affecting this country’s energy industry.
On Tuesday Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley announced that the United States government had approved a waiver from sanctions for T&T to develop the Dragon Gas field, with NGC having a significant role to play.
Khan said he viewed this waiver as a “positive step” in the overall efforts to secure the future gas supply for the local energy sector which will ultimately benefit the people of T&T.
“Moreover, NGC will work together with both Shell and the GORTT to bring gas from the Dragon Field to T&T in the shortest possible timeframe,” Khan stated.
The Dragon Field update came on the heels of the partners of Atlantic LNG agreeing last month to restructure ownership of the facility in a move that will see NGC increase its equity across the liquefaction trains and create a single commercial structure.
Khan said the restructuring of Atlantic should be viewed in three ways.
“One is the simplification of the commercial arrangement. I think that simplification allows Atlantic to focus on operational excellence. When you had these different arrangments between Trains 1, 2, 3, 4 it had a degree of complexity,” Khan said.
“Two is the increase in government’s participation in the trains specifically utilising the NGC because we have built significant experience for example with the marketing of the LNG and so on. We are now better poised to gain that level of participation,” he said.
“Another benefit is ensuring that there is an incentive for the upstreamers to participate within the gas value chain so anyone now can be able to supply feedstock, natural gas into the arrangement. So now all players can be part of the gas processing arrangement,” Khan said.
Khan said the bottom line is the trains will have a higher level of sustainability.
“So you open up the market to ensure that there is that constant supply and also the investment. So there is sustainability now in our investment that we would have made and that the country would have made and the people of T&T would have made and of course sustainability in the petrochemical industry,” Khan said.
“If you look at it in that context I think that is where the win or the accomplishment is with the LNG arrangement. That is how we could benefit,” he said.
Asked how he would describe this period given those two major developments, Khan said “I would say exciting, and a time to focus on value creation.”
Value creation is important Khan.
During an exclusive 30-minute interview with the Business Guardian, Khan used the term and its derivatives no fewer than ten times.
Plans for 2023
“For 2023, we will strategically position ourselves to reaffirm our commitment to work closely with the GORTT and other stakeholders in the pursuit of maximising and leveraging opportunities for the energy security and sustainability of T&T’s energy sector that will ultimately serve the national interest,” Khan said.
One of the ways of ensuring this Khan said is the consolidation of the contracts with the downstream and the upstream.
“I think everyone knows, and this is public knowledge, that we have a significant amount of contracts with the upstream and downstream to engage and closeout. So I think 2023 one of our key focus is on now finalising those arrangements but more so having an operationalisation mechanism,” Khan said.
“We need to operationalise the arrangement. We need to ensure that the asset in its entirety really becomes a value driver to T&T so the focus will be on closing out the contracts and then operationalising the mechanism,” he said.
Khan said NGC also intends on focusing on power efficiency.
“As you know the conversation has been the better use of the gas molecules whether we put it to power, whether we put it to petchem and I think that conversation we need to be aligned to that and magnify that sort of conversation in this particular landscape,” Khan said.
“Keeping in line with power efficiency is the whole question of the green agenda and how do we actually move forward in the green agenda and I think it is important for us to know that the NGC is firstly aligned to the government’s mandate as it relates to the policies related to energy efficiency, renewable energy, and so on and all those things inside that space,” he said.
Khan said NGC is in the process of recreating a green entity
“Another aspect of our focus for 2023 in NGC we have seen technology as an enabler and one of the initiatives is that of the S/4 HANA that we are working on within the group and it is really to ensure that there is alignment throughout the group as it relates to the use of technology, ensuring that there is a high level of operational efficiency and effectiveness and so on,” he said.
The challenge
Khan lauded NGC President Mark Loquan and the entire team at the organisation for the significant progress it has made.
“If you get into something that is working you don’t come and dismantle, you come and seek where you can support and I think if we did not have a strong foresighted president and management team and leadership team we would have been here today,” Khan said.
One of the achievements he said was the resolution of “failure to supply gas” claims amounting to over $8 billion.
“We also would have seen significant improvement in areas such as asset integrity. We would have seen improvement in the procurement system, we have now moved towards e-procurement and by doing so there would have been significant value creation and savings and those kinds of things because it allows you to negotiate and renegotiate to get the best price and best quality,” he said.
Khan said the challenge now is how to build on past successes.
“That is our challenge as a group. And building on those successes requires the right resources, the people, the leadership, the culture, the skills, the talents the competencies,” Khan said.
“One of the things that we are focusing on is data analytics and data science because we want to be an evidence-driven organisation where decisions are made by evidence, and data analytics is something that we are focusing on,” he said.
Khan said another challenge is getting employees with the right resources is green skills.
“So here we are talking about the green agenda and our shift, the energy transition but we will definitely need a cadre of skilled persons within the area of the green space,” Khan said.
“And very dear to me is the issue of strategy execution so we need to ensure that strategy execution is built, the whole capability is built across the group starting at the level of presidents straight down. For us to maintain and sustain, and for us the reengineer and reposition ourselves in 2023 the successes that we would have embarked on and realised the challenge is now ensuring that we keep it going,” he said.
Who is Joseph Ishmael Khan?
Khan started working at the age of 19.
He is currently aged 46 and is a husband and father of three girls.
He attended Couva Junior Secondary and then Carapichaima Senior Comprehensive.
“I came out in the mechanical engineering field and I spent about six years in the petrochem industry,” he said.
He bagen his career as a Mechanical Engineering Technician and Mechanical Inspector with several industrial process plants in the Point Lisas Industrial Estate.
“Call any rotating equipment I have worked on it pumps, compressors, turbines, static equipment such as compressors, heat exchangers, boilers,” he said.
At 20-year-old Khan began to teach.
“My space over the last 15 years or so has been in the international arena,” he said.
He leads and collaborates on development projects in Guyana, Jamaica, Barbados, Belize, Bahamas, Grenada, Suriname and Germany, France and Spain for private and public sector organisations and international agencies such as the Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB), Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and Organisation of American States (OAS/CICAD), among others.
Khan was also a director of the Evolving Tecknologies and Enterprise Development Company Limited (eTecK) board and also chaired the Magdalena Grand Hotel.
“So you know you take some of those learnings into this but of course, you know the size, and the scope and the complexity are different but fundamentals of governance and effective governance and leadership and management will hold,” he said.
Khan said his focus is on supporting the NGC group in becoming a centre of excellence as it relates to strategy, leadership and management
“We have all the technical experts in the group so I am not going to focus on that I am focusing on ensuring that we build on thematic areas such as ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance), safety, asset integrity, project management strategy,” he said.
“I should also let you know that we are focusing on asset optimisation,” Khan said.
Khan said Phoenix Park Gas Processors recently acquired Twin Eagles and the Hull terminal in Houston so now the focus is on ensuring that that asset delivers value.
“For value creation to be realised at NGC we need to have stronger group synergies. We need to ensure that there is improved knowledge transfer, there is improved institutional strengthening and capacity building,” Khan said.
“And I want to leave a legacy where one can say you know there is a stronger focus on people, there is a stronger focus on leadership, and there is a stronger focus on culture. What we call it now at NGC is PLC; People, Leadership and Culture,” he said.
“It goes back to operational excellence, leadership, agility, strategy execution, a focus on people, a focus on building a culture that is really toward value creation and not value destruction and fundamentally as a group when this can happen we can go back to that alignment to what our mandate is and to what the government’s policy is as it relates to the whole energy space,” Khan said.