Young: Announcement soon on Atlantic LNG

ENERGY Minister Stuart Young said an announcement will soon be made with respect to negotiations for a restructured Atlantic LNG (ALNG) which have been ongoing for the last two years. He made this statement during his contribution to the budget debate in the House of Representatives on Saturday.

In January, Government and shareholders in ALNG have reached a heads of agreement (HoA) that will guide the company's restructuring.

Sources told Newsday at that time, the objective of the HoA is to restructure ALNG so its shareholders would own certain percentages in the new entity as opposed to having ownership in its four trains. In the current arrangement, Government, through NGC, only has shares in trains one and four.

While the HoA may not immediately address issues concerning train one, which is currently shutdown, sources said a restructured ALNG, could allow Government through the NGC to access a portion of the revenues from trains which it currently has no shares in.

Train one has been shutdown since November 2020

On Saturday, Young said, "Very soon. we will be able to tell the population the benefit that decision has for the future of TT."

He added, "The only country in the world that is renegotiating LNG trains' ownerships' structure future is TT. We are at the forefront of setting precedent globally."

He recalled the decision to shut down Train One " was as result of difficult negotiations we were in at a time, where we were a minority shareholder in a four train facility."

Young was confident the population would be satisfied with the outcome of the negotiations for a restructured ALNG.

"That I can guarantee."

The Prime Minister and Young discussed the restructuring of ALNG with BP and Shell executives in separate meeting sin London and in the Hague in September.

He was also confident that TT would see the benefit of Government's successful negotiations with Venezuela to delink the Manatee field from the Loran field and for the former to be developed by Shell.

The Manatee field is located on TT's side of its maritime border with Venezuela. The Loran field is located on the Venezuelan side of this border.

With Manatee possessing approximately 2.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, Young said this would be the largest single investment in natural gas in TT for over a decade.

He added that gas from the Manatee field would greatly assist the energy sector and the economy for years to come.

Existing shareholder arrangements in ALNG (per cent)

Train One: Shell – 46, BP – 34 , NGC – 10, CIC – 10 Train Two: Shell – 57.5, BP– 42.5

Train Three: Shell – 57.5, BP – 42.5

Train Four: Shell – 51.11, BP – 37.78, NGC – 11.11