Khan: Atlantic train one won’t shut down in 2021

An aerial shot of Atlantic's liquefied natural gas facility in Point Fortin. -
An aerial shot of Atlantic's liquefied natural gas facility in Point Fortin. -

ENERGY Minister Franklin Khan said train one at Atlantic LNG will not be closing soon, even as efforts are under way to find new suppliers of natural gas to the plant.

In the House of Representatives, on Friday, Khan was replying to an urgent question from Pointe-a-Pierre MP David Lee who claimed Government and the National Gas Company (NGC) were in “a desperate attempt” to save the plant from shutting down next month, and who asked what was being done to stop it being mothballed.

Khan said, “Atlantic train one will not be shutting down in January 2020. Train one will continue to operate in 2021 and will be part of a wider negotiation which has been taking place among the Atlantic LNG shareholders to form one unitised facility encompassing all four trains.”

He said on behalf of the Government, NGC was acting to maintain the operability of train one, pending the finalisation of the negotiations for the unitised facility.

“Only last night the shareholders of Atlantic train one approved the turnaround (TAR) – a maintenance schedule – in January for the train.

“This will keep the train in an operations-ready mode for all of 2021 into 2022.”

Lee asked if the shareholders had agreed to supply natural gas to train one.

Khan replied, “The issue of the operability of the plant will depend on the TAR. On the gas-supply side, we are currently in negotiations (to) source a continuous supply. This train was normally supplied 100 per cent by BP. BP is saying they have a shortage and they cannot supply.

“But BP is not the only supplier of gas in Trinidad. So we are in some sensitive negotiations with upstreamers to supply gas to train one.”

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