Ramnarine: Gas agreement with Barbados a win-win situation

Former Energy Minister Kevin Ramnarine said this country should have production from its unitisation agreement with Barbados in ten years.

He was speaking to Newsday in a telephone interview and responding to the energy deal signed on Monday by the Prime Minister and Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley.

"I think it’s a natural step. Something we have to do because we share a maritime border with Barbados."

He recalled during his tenure as energy minister, TT signed production-sharing contracts in that area close to the border north-east of Tobago in an area called the Tobago trough. He said BHP Billiton has done exploration in that area and they have confirmed they have found a significant amount of natural gas. He added that BHP has also been awarded licenses on the Barbadian side of the border and will also be exploring in Barbados waters north-east of Tobago.

"It is likely exploration in those waters between TT and Barbados may lead to discoveries that straddle the maritime border. If that happens, we will have to have unitisation agreement to jointly develop natural gas."

Ramnarine said he was very positive that gas is going to produced from the Trinidad side with the BHP northern catchment of blocks, as BHP is confident that the trend off Tobago will continue up to Barbados. He said it was likely that sometime within this decade natural gas or oil would be found in the Barbados deepwater. He pointed out that Barbados has a small level of oil and natural gas production, and if there are discoveries divided by the border there will need to be a policy formula to jointly develop those fields.

"If it happens sooner that’s great because we need all the gas we can get."

He pointed out that Barbados is a tourist-based economy and uses natural gas for cooking and, unlike TT, does not have methanol and ammonia plants or LNG trains that need to be constantly supplied with natural gas.

"It is a win-win for the region."

He explained that it is part of a regional energy picture that is emerging which included Guyana, Suriname and Grenada.