Heritage pays TT$131m in royalties

FINANCE Minister Colm Imbert today indicated on Twitter that Petrotrin's successor company, Heritage Petroleum Ltd, which extracts and exports crude oil, had just paid the Government millions in royalties.

"Heritage Petroleum Limited today paid the Treasury TT$131 million in Oil Royalties!! This was for the 3-month period Jan-Mar 2019. It's the first time our national oil company has paid its taxes in the last 3 YEARS! Congrats to all involved!!" Imbert said in a tweet, seemingly quite gleeful.

Given that royalties are 12.5 per cent on gross revenue, this would suggest that for the stated period, Heritage made revenues of about $1.05 billion.

On March 26, Energy Minister Franklin Khan, in reply to a question, told the Senate the earnings of Heritage from its crude oil exports last December were US$38 million and for January 2019, US$64 million, totalling US$102 million or about TT$700 million for two months. Imbert, acting as energy minister in Senate on April 2, said as at January 31, Heritage reported a net loss of US$2.76 million. The company also has to pay the Supplemental Petroleum Tax, which kicks in when West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil prices cross US$50 per barrel.

Trinidad Petroleum Holdings Ltd, in a statement yesterday, denied a newspaper report that Heritage had earned an after-tax profit of $565 million in four months. It did not state its profits but said it is reviewing the financial results from its subsidiaries and expects to publish interim unaudited financial results at the end of May.

World oil prices today are riding a six-month high over US President Trump’s decision to end the waiver of oil sanctions against Iran, imposed for its nuclear programme. Brent crude (London) stood at US$74 per barrel while WTI was US$66, with the value of recent exports from TT reportedly being between those two benchmarks.