Energy Minister: US$10b in investments coming in next 3 years

ENERGY Minister Stuart Young says the population is soon going to see direct investment of over US$10 billion into the economy in the next three years.

He made this statement before the Standing Finance Committee of the House of Representatives approved a budgetary allocation of $675,278,900 to his ministry on October 15.

Before he made his statement, Young told committee chairman, Speaker Bridgid Annisette-George he was "just making sure that the mic (microphone) was on."

Young told MPs, "You can see the pieces of the puzzle coming together."

He added, "I can say now to the population of TT. Between now and 2027, they will see direct foreign investment in TT in the energy sector of over US$10 billion and that will also produce revenue for TT."

Young reminded MPs about the various cross-border energy initiatives with Venezuela which government pursuing and how progress was made on all of these fronts.

• Last December, government secured a a 30-year licence with Venezuela for the Dragon field which is estimated to hold 4.2 trillion cubic feet of gas, with a projected output of 185 million cubic feet per day.

• In July, government secured a 20-year licence from Venezuela for bpTT to exploit the Cocunia field on the Venezuela side of the unified one trillion cubic feet Cocuina/Manakin field of which bpTT already has an operatorship of the Manakin part lying in TT water

• Also in July, Shell announced its final investment decision on the Manatee field, which straddles the TT-Venezuela maritime border between TT and Venezuela. Shell plans to bring gas production from Manatee online by 2027.

Young said in The last 48 hours, there were announcements of further investments in Manatee by Shell and seismic surveys being done in three deep-water blocks which were awarded this year.

He added that on October 11, a vessel left TT to conduct seismic surveys in the Dragon field.

The Prime Minister and Young toured the vessel before it left Chaguaramas on that day.

Young said this exercise will provide information to lay the undersea pipeline to bring natural gas from Dragon to the Hibiscus platform in TT's waters.

"What we have seen in the energy sector is a resurgence. Much investment. A good future being provided for TT."

In response to questions from Pointe-a-Pierre MP David Lee, Young said the ministry's efforts to assist in helping clean up the oil spill which happened off Tobago in February has been very successful.

He recalled government approached the UK-based International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds (IOPC) in May to cover some of the costs it and the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) have incurred as a result of oil spill which occurred off Tobago's southeast coast on February 7.

At that time, Young estimated that the cost incurred so far by central government in dealing with the spill, could be between US$14 million to us$20 million.

Young said, "That process has begun. In fact, we should be heading back up to the IOPC for a further engagement with them."

He added IOPC personnel were in TT a few days ago.

"That process is going well in terms of the country receiving reimbursement for the cost associated with the oil spill."

Lee asked if expenditure to clean up the spill could be recovered.

Young said, "I certainly hope that the vast majority of it will be recovered to the taxpayers."

With respect to other questions posed by Lee, Young told him the Finance Ministry could provide the information he was seeking.

He added ministry officials were in the parliament chamber while they were speaking but Finance Minister Colm Imbert was not.

"He (Imbert) seems to have left his mic."

Lee asked about a $5 million allocation to Alutech.

Young said, "As part of the government's diversfication programme, we are pursuing the Alutech investment."

The company, he continued, has established a warehouse facility and obtained certain equipment to facilitate startup of this initiative.

"This is to cover wages, salaries and other start up costs."

Young added that government is "the majority shareholder of this investment."

Alutech, an initiative of the former Patrick Manning administration, was relaunched at Tamana In Tech Park in October 2018.

At that time, the Prime Minister said the company would import aluminum ingots which would be used to manufacture aluminium wheel rims.

Dr Rowley added the initiative would not involve the construction of an aluminum smelter.