ANOTHER blow to our survival as BPTT suffers another setback in natural gas production for this country.
BPTT has more delays as its long-awaited Cassia C project has been delayed again and will not come on stream until the end of the year or even later.
Cassia C was designed to deliver more than a quarter-billion standard cubic feet of low-pressure natural gas and now we are hearing that it’s facing more delays. The reports are that the challenges faced by the Covid-19 pandemic were responsible for delays to deliver the natural gas on time.
This failure to deliver on its Cassia C project will affect Trinidad and Tobago significantly in terms of the country’s natural gas production and therefore government’s revenue.
Like we need more bad news in the energy sector as another shutdown. This will have adverse effects on everything from LNG output to the gas availability and negative impact on the whole petrochemical sector.
No natural gas from BPTT was why government had to admit to eventually having no choice to shut the Train 1 of the LNG plant. The National Gas Company (NGC) and its board had asked for protection from cabinet to make a decision that wasted more than a quarter-billion dollars in a futile misguided hope that they would have access to more gas from Train 1. The writing was on the wall but the people in charge decided to make a decision to spend the funds anyway.
Recent media reports show that BPTT has not been able to meet its contractual obligations and has had shortages in its supply to both Atlantic LNG and the NGC.
In another bad deal that boggles the mind, NGC has no contractual recourse for BPTT’s not being able to provide the natural gas. How can this be? However, it is so and the NGC company is now set to pay out large sums of money to downstream companies for its failure to provide them with all the contracted natural gas quantities they could not provide. What a colossal mess!
Blunder after blunder with the state of affairs. The Government continues its mishandling of the state of affairs of our energy sector.
The BPTT shortfall effectively puts an end to any notions that T&T or the NGC could meet its commitment to downstream companies. The development is terrible news for Finance Minister Colm Imbert who continues to say that he’s handling everything properly while increasing gasoline prices at the pump and causing more hardship on citizens. The low production means more losses, no additional revenue and no additional earnings of foreign exchange that is already in short supply.
How long can the government uphold this facade blaming everything and everyone one else, including the opposition leader for their blunders? How long before further fallouts, like devaluation and rampant inflation? How long can we hold on to the imaginary exchange rate at approximately TT$6.8 to one United States dollar? Mr Imbert wake up and smell the coffee. The cover ups and hiding of the truth have come back to bite us in our behinds.
It is obvious that we are in a terrible situation. On the petrochemical side when the prices are high at the moment and when the returns are supposed to be at their best for the government, the NGC just does not have the natural gas to fulfil their requirements. The Ministry of Energy figures show production down everywhere and with Train 1 dead, T&T’s LNG capacity is under 2 bscf/d, for the first 12 months we saw the average production was down to a mere 1.256 bscf/d.
All of these bad decisions and failures have come home to hit us hard and caused continued challenges for the government of T&T and the economy.
The government’s energy experts and decision makers have not engendered confidence in this process at all, from the shutting down of Petrotrin to the opening up of the new companies. It has all been shrouded in secrecy and seeming incompetence.
How can we hope to be a major player in the energy landscape of our future with blunder after blunder taking place? It’s too many now.
We can’t seem to get it right!
Neil Gosine is an insurance executive, the North East Regional Coordinator of the United National Congress and a former chairman of the National Petroleum Marketing Company of Trinidad and Tobago. He also holds a Masters in Business Administration. The comments and opinions expressed by him in this column are not necessarily those of AZPNews.com, a division of Complete Image Limited.
Commentary: Not Getting it Right in Energy
ANOTHER blow to our survival as BPTT suffers another setback in natural gas production for this country.
BPTT has more delays as its long-awaited Cassia C project has been delayed again and will not come on stream until the end of the year or even later.
Cassia C was designed to deliver more than a quarter-billion standard cubic feet of low-pressure natural gas and now we are hearing that it’s facing more delays. The reports are that the challenges faced by the Covid-19 pandemic were responsible for delays to deliver the natural gas on time.
This failure to deliver on its Cassia C project will affect Trinidad and Tobago significantly in terms of the country’s natural gas production and therefore government’s revenue.
Like we need more bad news in the energy sector as another shutdown. This will have adverse effects on everything from LNG output to the gas availability and negative impact on the whole petrochemical sector.
No natural gas from BPTT was why government had to admit to eventually having no choice to shut the Train 1 of the LNG plant. The National Gas Company (NGC) and its board had asked for protection from cabinet to make a decision that wasted more than a quarter-billion dollars in a futile misguided hope that they would have access to more gas from Train 1. The writing was on the wall but the people in charge decided to make a decision to spend the funds anyway.
Recent media reports show that BPTT has not been able to meet its contractual obligations and has had shortages in its supply to both Atlantic LNG and the NGC.
In another bad deal that boggles the mind, NGC has no contractual recourse for BPTT’s not being able to provide the natural gas. How can this be? However, it is so and the NGC company is now set to pay out large sums of money to downstream companies for its failure to provide them with all the contracted natural gas quantities they could not provide. What a colossal mess!
Blunder after blunder with the state of affairs. The Government continues its mishandling of the state of affairs of our energy sector.
The BPTT shortfall effectively puts an end to any notions that T&T or the NGC could meet its commitment to downstream companies. The development is terrible news for Finance Minister Colm Imbert who continues to say that he’s handling everything properly while increasing gasoline prices at the pump and causing more hardship on citizens. The low production means more losses, no additional revenue and no additional earnings of foreign exchange that is already in short supply.
How long can the government uphold this facade blaming everything and everyone one else, including the opposition leader for their blunders? How long before further fallouts, like devaluation and rampant inflation? How long can we hold on to the imaginary exchange rate at approximately TT$6.8 to one United States dollar? Mr Imbert wake up and smell the coffee. The cover ups and hiding of the truth have come back to bite us in our behinds.
It is obvious that we are in a terrible situation. On the petrochemical side when the prices are high at the moment and when the returns are supposed to be at their best for the government, the NGC just does not have the natural gas to fulfil their requirements. The Ministry of Energy figures show production down everywhere and with Train 1 dead, T&T’s LNG capacity is under 2 bscf/d, for the first 12 months we saw the average production was down to a mere 1.256 bscf/d.
All of these bad decisions and failures have come home to hit us hard and caused continued challenges for the government of T&T and the economy.
The government’s energy experts and decision makers have not engendered confidence in this process at all, from the shutting down of Petrotrin to the opening up of the new companies. It has all been shrouded in secrecy and seeming incompetence.
How can we hope to be a major player in the energy landscape of our future with blunder after blunder taking place? It’s too many now.
We can’t seem to get it right!
Neil Gosine is an insurance executive, the North East Regional Coordinator of the United National Congress and a former chairman of the National Petroleum Marketing Company of Trinidad and Tobago. He also holds a Masters in Business Administration. The comments and opinions expressed by him in this column are not necessarily those of AZPNews.com, a division of Complete Image Limited.