KY­RON REG­IS

ky­ron.reg­is@guardian.co.tt

At­lantic LNG Train 1 will not be moth­balled in Jan­u­ary 2021 and ap­proval has al­so been giv­en for a turn­around to done on the plant, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Franklin Khan has said.

Speak­ing at the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day, Khan said: “At­lantic Train 1 will not be shut­ting down in Jan­u­ary 2021. Train 1 will con­tin­ue to op­er­ate in 2021 and will be part of wider ne­go­ti­a­tions, which have been tak­ing place among the At­lantic LNG share­hold­ers to form one uni­tised fa­cil­i­ty en­com­pass­ing all four Trains.”

Khan was re­spond­ing to ques­tion per­tain­ing to a Guardian Me­dia Ltd (GML) Re­port that not­ed there was a des­per­ate at­tempt by the gov­ern­ment and the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of T&T (NGC) to save At­lantic LNG Train 1.

Khan not­ed that the NGC, act­ing on be­half of the gov­ern­ment, is tak­ing the re­quired ac­tions to main­tain the op­er­abil­i­ty of Train 1, pend­ing the fi­nal­iza­tion of the ne­go­ti­a­tions of the struc­ture for the uni­tised fa­cil­i­ty.

Khan not­ed: “On­ly last night (3rd De­cem­ber) the share­hold­ers of At­lantic Train 1, ap­proved the turn­around (TA)”.

Ac­cord­ing to Khan, the turn­around would take place in Jan­u­ary and would keep it in an “op­er­a­tions ready mode” for all of 2021 in­to 2022.

When asked if the share­hold­ers have agreed to sup­ply gas to Train 1, Khan said: “The is­sue of the op­er­ata­bil­i­ty of the plant will de­pend on the TA.”

On the gas sup­ply side, Khan not­ed ne­go­ti­a­tions are still un­der­way to source a con­tin­ued sup­ply be­cause the train was nor­mal­ly sup­plied 100 per cent by BPTT.

The En­er­gy Min­is­ter said: “BP is say­ing that they have a short­age and they can­not sup­ply, but BP is not the on­ly sup­pli­er of gas in Trinidad so we are in some sen­si­tive ne­go­ti­a­tions, let me make that point, with up­stream­ers to sup­ply gas to Train 1.”

Ear­li­er this year, BPTT told GML that its short-term sup­ply arrange­ments on Train 1 have been ex­tend­ed to the end of 2020 and the com­pa­ny was al­so re­view­ing its fore­cast pro­duc­tion for 2021 and be­yond while work­ing with the At­lantic stake­hold­ers to un­der­stand the op­tions for ex­tend­ing the the life of Train 1.

GML was told that the gov­ern­ment met with BPTT on Wednes­day 3rd De­cem­ber, to con­vince the multi­na­tion­al to sup­ply gas in­to Train 1.

GML al­so un­der­stands that the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of T&T (NGC) want­ed to as­sume the role of lead op­er­a­tor of Train 1 to keep it run­ning.