Ex-ministers split on Rowley’s call to ‘pray for oil’

THE Prime Minister’s recent call for the pious to pray for oil to be discovered drew sharply differing reactions from two former energy ministers. At a People's National Movement meeting at Barataria on Tuesday, Dr Rowley said a new oil find during current exploration 80 miles off Trinidad’s west coast could give TT a very bright future, adding that economic diversification could not be done today for today.

Conrad Enill, who served in the Patrick Manning administration and attended Tuesday's event, stoutly supported Rowley’s stance, but not so Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan, former minister in the People’s Partnership government and now head of Congress of the People, speaking to Newsday yesterday.

Enill said diversification is usually sought for the medium to long term and Rowley’s comment was a call to increase TT’s earnings in the immediate term. As TT is already in the oil business, new oil finds will bring in revenues faster than the creation of new areas of diversification, he explained.

“Diversification needs new people, new infrastructure and new markets, and will take time. In contrast, additional oil revenues will come more rapidly.”

However Enill made the point that even when diversification comes, it will be of limited value as a source of revenue if the country does not simultaneously control its expenditure.

Seepersad-Bachan, in contrast, said TT’s oil production has been falling badly, and the Government’s role should be to constantly “prove up”/establish the reserves, not call on people to pray.

“They have lacked consistency. Proving up the reserves is to be an ongoing process.”

She said that for the Government to call for prayer only now, when it realises oil production is down, is not the way things are done.

“You must have a planned programme, to invite foreign investment to prove up reserves."

Seepersad-Bachan said under the Heritage Company, oil production had fallen since the time of its predecessor ,Petrotrin.

On the PM’s remark that diversification takes time, Seepersad-Bachan said you can actually diversify into the downstream of the energy sector. Suggesting exactly the opposite of this had happened when the Government mothballed the Pointe-a-Pierre oil refinery, she said, “You close the refinery and you lose the value chain where we had got more of our value, more jobs and more technology transfer.

"In contrast, at the upstream level, most of the foreign investment goes back out abroad such as to pay for seismic services.”

Seepersad-Bachan said TT needs an energy-sector policy. “This must call for consistency, and to always have your reserves at a particular level.”