Young: Trinidad and Tobago making strides with hydrogen

During his opening of a panel discussion at the Energy Chamber’s Energy Conference, Energy Minister Stuart Young said the government has been “making good strides on the hydrogen side.”

He was joined by Juan Vasquez, country manager of Woodside Energy, David Campbell, regional president of bpTT, Mark Loquan, president of the National Gas Company of TT Ltd (NGC), Aleeya Ali, Proman's managing director of operations, Marc Jardine, vice president of business banking at RBC Royal Bank, with Dr Thackwray Driver, president and CEO of the Energy Chamber as the facilitator.

“We have a government that is very proactive and we are ahead of the game in renewables. As you would have seen towards the end of last year, we have signed the largest solar project in the whole English-speaking Caricom and that is no small task,” Young said at the Hyatt Regency, Port of Spain.

He said up- and low-stream stakeholders have been engaged with to ensure that this happens and continue to do so.

“That reasoning is to make sure that with every single project, we can get every molecule of oil and gas from the ground as quickly as possible by working with our stakeholders.”

He wanted to make it clear that TT has the infrastructure and used the Point Lisas industrial estate as an example. He described it as one-of-a-kind saying that this facility does not exist anywhere else in the western hemisphere.

Young said TT is seeing LNG, ammonia and methanol as the products that comes from the energy transition. He said works on the carbon capture sequestration and utilisation (CCSU) process are not moving as quickly as he’d hope, but it is happening. CCSU is a process in which carbon dioxide emissions from coal-driven power plants are either reused or stored, so that emissions do not enter the atmosphere.

He said NGC and Heritage Petroleum Ltd are already working on the removal of methane gas
and the focus is now placed on deepwater exploration and drilling.

Young said, “To those naysayers out there who don’t want to believe that the deepwater is happening, it is happening. We are in active conversations and negotiations right now with Woodside to bring Calypso to market. We have entered negotiations with bpTT and Shell on the deepwater, so the government is very active.”

He added, “Let us use our infrastructure here, we have an advantage over many countries in the world who are hydro-carbon based where have our mature infrastructure based on methanol, ammonia, urea and LNG. Let us utilise it, clean it up, let us get the CCSU done and let’s make sure that we continue to have the energy sector available for many decades, that we see many projects come on stream for the future of gas.”

Young ended his opening with, “The government is proactive, we are listening and we’re ready to work with you with one man mate. The government is going to get the best deal and the best returns for the people of TT, so when you’re coming to the table to talk to us just bear that one thing in mind, that is the one non-negotiable. Everything else is negotiable.”