There is con­cern that T&T is loos­ing out on hun­dreds of mil­lions of US dol­lars be­cause of slow de­ci­sion mak­ing by state agen­cies, es­pe­cial­ly the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA), and now comes word that Touch­stone En­er­gy’s Cas­cadu­ra project will be de­layed at a time of high gas and oil prices.

Sources at the Min­istry of En­er­gy told the Busi­ness Guardian that the de­lay in the project will mean a lack of ac­cess of to 90 mil­lion stan­dard cu­bic feet per day of new nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion and three thou­sand bar­rels of light-sweet crude oil, plus Touch­stone is los­ing mon­ey hav­ing al­ready hired a rig to drill its wells in an­tic­i­pa­tion of ap­proval from the EMA, but it ap­pears that the reg­u­la­to­ry body wants more ques­tions an­swered.

How­ev­er the en­vi­ron­men­tal watch­dog has in­sist­ed that it is not to be blamed for de­lays and has in­stead claimed that some of the oil and gas op­er­a­tors are at fault and that the gov­ern­ment needs to take ac­tion if it wants to speed up Cer­tifi­cates of En­vi­ron­men­tal clear­ance.

In an in­ter­view with the Busi­ness Guardian Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of the EMA Hay­den Ro­mano in a ro­bust de­fence of the Au­thor­i­ty said: “Com­pa­nies that are com­plain­ing are the com­pa­nies that are not tak­ing the en­vi­ron­ment se­ri­ous­ly.”

He said the EMA told the roadmap to re­cov­ery com­mit­tee that the chal­lenge it has in speed­ing up en­vi­ron­men­tal clear­ance for projects is a lack of da­ta and if the Gov­ern­ment knows where it wants to cre­ate growth poles for sec­tors then it should un­der­take the Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance in ad­vance of invit­ing in­vestors.

“The EMA has rec­om­mend­ed to the Road to Re­cov­ery Com­mit­tee that da­ta scarci­ty is a ma­jor chal­lenge in Trinidad & To­ba­go and that mea­sures have to be found to ac­quire da­ta based on pro­posed de­vel­op­ments/growth poles (Strate­gic En­vi­ron­men­tal Im­pact as­sess­ments) so that the CEC process can be fast tracked,” the Au­thor­i­ty told the Busi­ness Guardian.

In a sub­se­quent re­sponse to ques­tions from the Busi­ness Guardian the EMA in­sist­ed that un­der the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Act Chap­ter 35:05 (EM Act), it is charged with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of main­tain­ing the del­i­cate bal­ance be­tween en­vi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment and de­vel­op­ment.

It not­ed that ac­cord­ing to the Unit­ed Na­tions, sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment re­quires an in­te­grat­ed ap­proach that takes in­to con­sid­er­a­tion en­vi­ron­men­tal con­cerns along with eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment.  

“At­tempt­ing to strike this bal­ance has at­tract­ed fall-out when busi­ness in­ter­ests and needs con­flict and com­pete with sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment.” the EMA not­ed.

The prob­lem is not new and ac­cord­ing to a study by the En­er­gy Cham­ber hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars in net present val­ue can be cre­at­ed and shared with gov­ern­ment and in­dus­try if the project ap­proval process was has­tened.

In re­sponse to ques­tions from the Busi­ness Guardian the Cham­ber said its six-point plan to se­cure the fu­ture of the gas in­dus­try, re­leased in May 2022, iden­ti­fied the need to speed-up reg­u­la­to­ry ap­proval process­es as a key area for ac­tion.

“In 2020, the En­er­gy Cham­ber re­leased the find­ings of an in-depth study in­to the ap­proval process for up­stream gas projects. The study in­di­cat­ed that for a typ­i­cal off­shore up­stream gas project there were a to­tal of thir­ty-three sep­a­rate ma­jor ap­provals need­ed across eight dif­fer­ent agen­cies, in­clud­ing the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty, the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands, the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al and the Mar­itime Ser­vices Di­vi­sion, in ad­di­tion to var­i­ous di­vi­sions with­in the Min­istry of En­er­gy. For on­shore up­stream projects there are ad­di­tion­al ap­provals al­so need­ed from agen­cies such as the Forestry Di­vi­sion and lo­cal gov­ern­ment.

The study in­di­cat­ed that it took on av­er­age 12 years be­tween the launch of a bid round and first pro­duc­tion from a gas field,” the Cham­ber told the BG.

It said there is a ma­jor op­por­tu­ni­ty for T&T if the ap­proval process for both up­stream and oth­er en­er­gy sec­tor projects could be stream­lined. The same study the Cham­ber not­ed cal­cu­lat­ed that a one-year re­duc­tion in the time tak­en to first gas could cre­ate US$ 120 mil­lion in ad­di­tion­al net present val­ue for a typ­i­cal T&T medi­um-sized off­shore gas field. This is val­ue it said which would be shared be­tween the Gov­ern­ment, in terms of tax­es or prof­it share, and the op­er­a­tor com­pa­ny and could make a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence in project eco­nom­ics.

Ac­cord­ing to the En­er­gy Cham­ber it is not just up­stream oil and gas projects that are ham­pered by slow ap­proval process­es and slow de­ci­sion mak­ing, re­new­able en­er­gy projects and oth­er en­er­gy sec­tor in­vest­ments and up­grades have al­so been ham­pered by a lack of fo­cus on time­ly ap­proval process­es.

“The En­er­gy Cham­ber of Trinidad & To­ba­go will con­tin­ue to ad­vo­cate for faster de­ci­sion mak­ing across all rel­e­vant agen­cies and we hope that this will be­come a key area of fo­cus for the Gov­ern­ment.”

For­mer En­er­gy Min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine in­sist­ed that le­gal ac­tion against the EMA ap­pears to have made the body even more cau­tious.

“The length of time it takes to get reg­u­la­to­ry ap­provals in the en­er­gy sec­tor is chok­ing projects and length­en­ing time­lines. It’s a very re­al prob­lem and it’s got­ten worse in re­cent years since reg­u­la­to­ry agen­cies like the EMA have be­come a lot more cau­tious be­cause of the Ju­di­cial Re­view ac­tions brought by en­vi­ron­men­tal groups.

“How­ev­er, in the con­text of an econ­o­my that needs more oil and nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion, it is mis­sion crit­i­cal that the Gov­ern­ment take a quick and de­ci­sive look at the labyrinth of ap­provals re­quired for en­er­gy projects. Some­times, I get the feel­ing the reg­u­la­to­ry agen­cies are de­tached from re­al­i­ty and don’t un­der­stand the in­dus­try.

“We had a sit­u­a­tion when I was Min­is­ter where a reg­u­la­to­ry agency held up first pro­duc­tion from a nat­ur­al gas project be­cause they want­ed the com­pa­ny to meet a stan­dard that was the sec­ond most strin­gent in the world.

“How is that prac­ti­cal in a brown­field province? When you think of the bil­lions that are be­ing lost in val­ue and days its a huge prob­lem. I think, if we are to deal with the short­age of nat­ur­al gas and the low pro­duc­tion of oil we need to find ways to speed up ap­provals and/or to cre­ate a one stop shop ap­provals agency,” Ram­nar­ine said.

“This was hint­ed too by Ro­mano. He told the Busi­ness Guardian: “When we point out de­fi­cien­cies in the EIA, its the EMA point­ing out the de­fi­cien­cies as the prin­ci­pal in­volved in the process, but it is the de­fi­cien­cies com­ing from the var­i­ous stake­hold­ers as a re­sult of the pub­lic com­ment pe­ri­od...This is a pub­lic en­gage­ment and I think some ap­pli­cants still don’t un­der­stand that..We are not there to hold back a process.”

Ac­cord­ing to the EMA its av­er­age pro­cess­ing time fo­ra Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal (CEC) Ap­pli­ca­tion re­quir­ing an En­vi­ron­men­tal Im­pact As­sess­ment (EIA) is 180 work­ing days while that of the Ap­pli­cant is 220 work­ing days.

“It must be not­ed that En­vi­ron­men­tal Im­pact As­sess­ments (EIAs) are re­quired in in­stances where projects are an­tic­i­pat­ed to have po­ten­tial sig­nif­i­cant im­pacts and re­quire a more rig­or­ous as­sess­ment. It is in­cum­bent on the ap­pli­cant to pro­vide the in­for­ma­tion that is re­quest­ed. The av­er­age pro­cess­ing time for Oil and Gas ap­pli­ca­tions not re­quir­ing EIAs is less than 100 work­ing days,” the EMA not­ed.

Spe­cif­ic to the Touch­stone ap­pli­ca­tion the EMA said it was sub­mit­ted and an EIA de­ter­mi­na­tion was made by the EMA. The EIA was sub­mit­ted and ac­cept­ed for re­view in Jan­u­ary 2022. The manda­to­ry Pub­lic Com­ment pe­ri­od of 30 days for this EIA end­ed on March 18, 2022. The re­view of the EIA by the in­ter-agency re­view team re­vealed sev­er­al de­fi­cien­cies and Primera (Touch­stone) was no­ti­fied on 4 May 2022. Re­spons­es were re­ceived from Primera on May 16, 2022 which did not ad­dress all the de­fi­cien­cies iden­ti­fied.

On June 23, 2022—Primera was ad­vised that sev­er­al de­fi­cien­cies were not ad­dressed. On Ju­ly 1, 2022 the EMA re­mind­ed Primera that it was still await­ing the out­stand­ing in­for­ma­tion to sat­is­fy en­vi­ron­men­tal re­quire­ments in ac­cor­dance with the EM Act,” the EMA told the Busi­ness Guardian.

It added that the EMA re­ceived the re­spons­es to the re­quest for clar­i­fi­ca­tion on the de­fi­cien­cies in the EIA on day #80, the statu­to­ry dead­line for mak­ing a de­ter­mi­na­tion, once all de­fi­cien­cies were ad­dressed.

As a re­sult of this the EMA was un­able to make a de­ter­mi­na­tion with­in the spec­i­fied statu­to­ry pe­ri­od and no­ti­fied the ap­pli­cant in writ­ing of the re­vised date by which the de­ter­mi­na­tion would be made and the rea­sons.

It said the EMA works with­in the statu­to­ry time­lines as pro­vid­ed by the EM Act and the CEC Rules and the Au­thor­i­ty is not re­spon­si­ble for any project de­lay.

“The EMA as a reg­u­la­tor is re­spon­si­ble for per­mit­ting projects based on the en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pact through the Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance (CEC) process. The CEC process is ad­min­is­tered in ac­cor­dance with the EM Act and CEC Rules and re­quires the project pro­po­nent to pro­vide in­for­ma­tion to the EMA and to the stake­hold­ers and gen­er­al pub­lic to en­sure all neg­a­tive en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pact is mit­i­gat­ed,” the BG was told.

It added that in the past con­cerns were raised and through the con­duct of sen­si­ti­sa­tion ses­sions, pre-ap­pli­ca­tion meet­ings and reg­u­lar stake­hold­er en­gage­ment these con­cerns were ad­dressed and it fre­quent­ly meets with ap­pli­cants to pro­vide clar­i­ty to what is re­quired for the EMA to make a de­ter­mi­na­tion.

With re­spect to oth­er projects like the San Fer­nan­do Wa­ter Front the EMA said those is­sues were re­solved even though it took a very long time.

It said: “The CEC for the San Fer­nan­do wa­ter­front CEC 5515/2018 was grant­ed on June 2, 2022 and the Movi­eTowne CEC 0910/2004 was grant­ed on Sep­tem­ber 2, 2005.”