Repsol E&P T&T Ltd will soon be repatriating Trinidadians from their companies around the world to work here, Repsol’s business adviser Allan Russell says.
Speaking with the T&T Guardian during a one-on-one session at the company’s Port-of-Spain offices, Russell said some of those people could eventually work on the offshore platforms recently leased from the National Gas Company (NGC).
“We can confirm that six will be returning. Some have already returned,” Russell said, noting the move to bring in expats was the most cost-effective option for the company.
He, however, did not disclose how many Trinidadians have already been repatriated by the company.
Russell also said of the 15 contract workers who were earlier this week sent home by NGC after the lease deal with Repsol was signed, ten of them will be contracted to work on the offshore compression Teak and Poui platforms, but through a local contractor.
The T&T Guardian understands the local contractor is Sookhai’s Diesel, based in Chaguanas. Asked how many workers Repsol will deploy at the platforms, Russell said the figure was just under 20.
On the issue of why voluntary separation packages (VSEP) were offered to approximately 190 of its employees, Repsol corporate communications manager, Heidi Diquez, who also sat in on the interview on Thursday evening, said many workers had requested VSEP as a chance of gaining a lump sump of money to either start up their own businesses or some other sort of investment. She said, however, the package was in keeping with good industrial relations practice and would add up to more than two weeks per month for each year of service.
Several Repsol employees who were offered VSEP and other compensatory packages, however, claim the offer does not correspond to the packages discussed among union reps in Madrid, Spain.
Repsol has been in T&T since 1995 with significant investment in Atlantic LNG, and started operations in 2005 when it acquired the TSP field from bpTT.
Asked how production has been for Repsol since its establishment, Russell said, “Very good. We have always had good relationships with all our stakeholders, including our fence-line communities, national and local governments, state companies and local contractors, always fostering a collaborative and mutually beneficial relationship.”
But Russell said from a total of 18,000 barrels a day in 2005, they are down to 12,000 barrels. Nevertheless, he said, Repsol is committed to arresting the oil production decline of the TSP field and looking for efficient and innovative ways to make its operations sustainable.
“I believe that it would probably be enough to ride out the storm because in no way would we be packing up and leaving. We have too much significant investment here in T&T,” Russell said.
He said since 1995 Repsol has invested US$2.5 billion here and this year it is committed to spending around US$800 million amongst its several business interests in T&T.
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Under the new lease agreement between NGC and Repsol, NGC has been forced to discontinue the operation of the offshore facilities and associated maintenance departments, displacing 84 workers, 15 of whom have been offered severance packages.
Approximately 82 per cent of the employees have been offered alternative positions within the NGC Group.
Sixty-nine of them have been redeployed to other units, of which 30 are being afforded opportunities to enhance technical skills and capabilities provided by a partnership with the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT).
NGC’s Teak and Poui compression platforms have been in operation for 30 years and, according to NGC chairman Gerry Brooks, they have been generating increasingly significant costs and losses over the past decade.
Brooks said that the lease agreement allows NGC to rationalise costs while maintaining strategic ownership of the asset for the future.