Finance Minister and acting Energy Minister Colm Imbert is happy that oil prices are rising which he said is positive for the economy of the country.
“From the recent agreement with the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non OPEC members you would have seen the uptick in the prices. I am very happy that the prices are over US$ 50 a barrel of oil. It means that T&T is now getting Supplemental Petroleum Tax (SPT) which the country does not get when the price is less than $50. The way the works is that it kicks in immediately at $50,” he said.
He said smaller energy companies have said that they make a loss money when oil prices around $50 to $60 a barrel and the oil and gas fiscal regime has to be modified.
“We are going to deal with that and we are going to address the way the SPT kicks in, to make it a profit based tax rather than a volume or revenue based tax so there will be a more equitable increase in the SPT which should encourage local companies to engage in greater production and exploration,” he said.
Imbert was speaking yesterday at the launch of bpTT Juniper Platform, Labidco Industrial Estate, La Brea.
The platform was built by locally by local company Trinidad Offshore Fabricators (TOFCO).
The Juniper facility will take gas from the Corallita and Lantana fields located 50 miles off the Southeast coast in water depth of approximately 360 feet.
Imbert said the Juniper field and other projects will help stabilise the gas shortages that energy companies face.
“I am told that by August the Juniper Field Development will come on stream with a production of 500 million standard Cubic Feet per day. This new production and other projects that bpTT has on stream such as the Trinidad Onshore Compression Project is due to come on stream in April 2017 and will help us stabilise our current gas supply situation,” he said.
He also spoke about the Dragon Field in Venezuela which T&T expects to get gas from in a few years.
In December, Prime Minster Dr. Keith Rowley had visited Venezuela and signed an agreement in relation to the Dragon gas field.
“As soon as the pipeline is constructed we should be able to access gas from Dragon to assist with our gas supply problem,” he said.
Imbert used TOFCO as an example for other local companies to emulate and said the Government will give TOFCO any assistance they need to break into regional and international markets.
Norman Christie, Regional President, bpTT who spoke to the media after the official ceremony said that they spent roughly US $2 billion on the entire Juniper project.
“We spent tens of millions of dollars building this platform. It is significant for T&T. We had 700 people working on the site. When this platform ends up offshore, over 550 million Standard Cubic Feet of gas per day will be brought to the country for use by the petrochemical plant at Point Lisas and Atlantic,” he said.