An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers

@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has point­ed to what she de­scribed as “strong signs of growth” in the en­er­gy sec­tor, cit­ing ex­pect­ed in­creas­es in gas pro­duc­tion from ma­jor up­stream projects over the next two years.

In a so­cial me­dia post yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­di­cat­ed that her ad­min­is­tra­tion has been fo­cused on strength­en­ing en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty since tak­ing of­fice, with ear­ly re­sults now emerg­ing.

“Good news! Strong signs of growth ahead for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s en­er­gy sec­tor,” she stat­ed. “My Gov­ern­ment has been work­ing dili­gent­ly on strength­en­ing en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty since en­ter­ing of­fice, and we are see­ing tan­gi­ble re­sults from that fo­cus.”

She high­light­ed up­com­ing de­vel­op­ments in­volv­ing BP plc and Shell plc, with both com­pa­nies prepar­ing for in­creased gas pro­duc­tion by 2027 as new projects come on­stream.

“Af­ter years of de­cline, this sig­nals in­creased gas out­put, greater en­er­gy sta­bil­i­ty, and more rev­enue and eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty,” the Prime Min­is­ter added.

How­ev­er, for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young has chal­lenged those claims, ar­gu­ing that the projects ref­er­enced were con­cep­tu­alised and ad­vanced un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“There is not a sin­gle new ini­tia­tive that En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has con­cep­tu­alised or is re­spon­si­ble for that has led to any in­creased oil or gas pro­duc­tion since May 2025,” Young stat­ed.

He point­ed to projects in­clud­ing Man­a­tee and Aphrodite (Shell), Men­to (bpTT/EOG), Gin­ger, and the Cas­sia C sub­sea well and tie-backs (bpTT), main­tain­ing that these were all pro­gressed un­der the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) gov­ern­ment.

“The re­ports of Shell and BP’s ex­pect­ed in­creased gas pro­duc­tion in 2027 are all the work done by the PNM gov­ern­ment… all our work,” he high­light­ed.

Young al­so at­trib­uted in­creased pro­duc­tion from Peren­co and ex­pan­sion ac­tiv­i­ty by Touch­stone Ex­plo­ration Inc to ap­provals grant­ed pri­or to the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion tak­ing of­fice.

On cross-bor­der gas ini­tia­tives, he ar­gued that ground­work had al­ready been laid be­fore the change in gov­ern­ment.

“The cross-bor­der gas that is be­ing pur­sued is all the work of the PNM,” he stat­ed.

Young fur­ther point­ed to the re­struc­tur­ing of At­lantic LNG, not­ing that in­creased share­hold­ing, im­proved gas prices, and ac­cess to LNG car­goes were out­comes of ne­go­ti­a­tions led by the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“So please ex­cuse Mooni­lal’s con­stant at­tempts to talk his way to achieve­ment or pro­duc­tiv­i­ty in the en­er­gy sec­tor by pre­tend­ing that he is some­how re­spon­si­ble for any in­creased pro­duc­tion in oil or gas,” Young added.