Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has wel­comed re­cent progress on Shell’s Man­a­tee gas project and urged the com­pa­ny to ex­plore in­creas­ing gas out­put to ad­dress Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ur­gent gas short­age.

In a me­dia state­ment, Dr Mooni­lal said, “I am very pleased with the progress Shell is mak­ing with the Man­a­tee project. The most re­cent de­vel­op­ment is the ar­rival in the coun­try of the MV Vox Amalia hop­per dredger which will con­duct trench­ing op­er­a­tions for a com­po­nent of the Man­a­tee pipeline. Re­lat­ed works are al­so on­go­ing to pre­pare in­fra­struc­ture in Guayagua­yare.”

He de­scribed the project as one shaped over sev­er­al ad­min­is­tra­tions and out­lined its back­ground. “In 2003, a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (2003 MOU) con­cern­ing the pro­ce­dure for the uni­ti­sa­tion of cross-bor­der hy­dro­car­bon reser­voirs was suc­cess­ful­ly ne­go­ti­at­ed and ex­e­cut­ed by T&T and Venezuela.

“In 2007, a Frame­work Treaty on Uni­ti­sa­tion of Hy­dro­car­bon Reser­voirs that ex­tend across the de­lim­i­ta­tion line was signed and served as a tem­plate for the uni­ti­sa­tion treaties for in­di­vid­ual reser­voirs.”

He al­so re­called the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion’s work, say­ing, “In Au­gust 2010 and in Feb­ru­ary 2015, the Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment led by Mrs Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar signed field-spe­cif­ic treaties for the Lo­ran-Man­a­tee and Man­akin-Cocuina cross-bor­der fields, re­spec­tive­ly.

“These two agree­ments meant that there was agree­ment, af­ter tech­ni­cal study, as to the ap­por­tion­ment be­tween both coun­tries of the Orig­i­nal Gas in Place (OGIP). This was an im­por­tant step to­wards the de­vel­op­ment of the Man­a­tee project.”

Ac­cord­ing to the state­ment, this frame­work led to the de-uni­ti­sa­tion of the Man­a­tee field from the broad­er Lo­ran-Man­a­tee field, en­abling de­vel­op­ment un­der a pro­duc­tion shar­ing con­tract be­tween Shell and the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries (MEEI).

“The Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries is very fo­cused on work­ing with Shell to en­sure the safe de­liv­ery of the Man­a­tee project and first gas by 2027. This is an im­por­tant step to right-side the short­age of nat­ur­al gas that we in­her­it­ed in April 2025 and which has neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed in­dus­tri­al out­put, gov­ern­ment rev­enue and for­eign ex­change earn­ings.”

Dr Mooni­lal made a di­rect call to ac­tion: “Giv­en the gas cri­sis we in­her­it­ed, in the com­ing months we will be work­ing with Shell to see if there are op­por­tu­ni­ties to in­crease the vol­umes of gas Man­a­tee can bring to the Trinidad and To­ba­go econ­o­my.”

When con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia and asked whether there was a con­cern with the Lo­ran field giv­en the ten­sions be­tween this coun­try and Venezuela as well as Unit­ed States sanc­tions, Min­is­ter Mooni­lal said, “We will cross that bridge when we meet it.”