Energy Ministry to host energy symposium to improve ease of business

THE Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries intends to host a symposium with energy stakeholders focused on improving the ease of doing business.

Speaking at a Society of Petroleum Engineers TT symposium on July 1, Minister Dr Roodal Moonilal said the government wants TT to re-emerge as the energy hub of the Caribbean. However, he said one of the major obstacles to increasing oil and gas production is the lack of operational efficiency linked to government approvals, that companies must navigate.

"In the energy sector, time is money. A study conducted by the Energy Chamber revealed that the approval process for new upstream projects requires 33 major approvals from eight ministries or agencies. Government approvals are required for almost every activity and at every stage, from seismic acquisition to exploration drilling to the operationalisation of the field development plan."

Moonilal said stakeholders will be invited to air their concerns and make recommendations to help de-bottleneck the approval process along the energy value chain and accelerate the development of projects in the energy sector.

Energy Chamber president Dr Thackwray (Dax) Driver, who was present during the symposium, told Business Day he welcomed the minister's revelation.

"We are extremely supportive of that idea and we would like to work closely with the Ministry of Energy and all the other agencies because not the Ministry of Energy alone, there are alot of other agencies involved in the process and we need to get them all aligned and working with the objective of just being efficient and doing things faster. The faster you can get the investment dollars coming in, the greater value you create for the country."

A subsequent release from the chamber said its 2020 study showed that a one-year improvement in the time from a bid round to first gas would result in an increase in the net present value of a typical shallow water offshore gas field in TT by approximately US$120 million.

"In addition to the approvals process, there are other ease-of-doing-business improvements that can help to improve the competitiveness of the energy sector.

"These changes are also important if we wish to meet the objective of being a regional energy services hub.

"Increasing the production of both oil and gas is critical for stabilisation of the economy and the generation of foreign exchange.

"It is also critical for the growth of opportunities for local contractors and employment in the sector."

In May 2022, the chamber launched a six-point plan to secure new natural gas supplies and maximise exports from TT.

In addition to speeding up the approvals process, the chamber called for reform to the upstream tax system to incentivise investment, divert gas from domestic electricity generation through energy efficiency and renewable energy, invest in reducing the carbon intensity of operations and products, encourage innovative approaches to small field development and secure cross-border supplies of natural gas.

The country's tedious approval process was called out by former prime minister Dr Keith Rowley days before he resigned from office earlier this year.

Speaking at the sod-turning for Nutrimix's $150 million animal and pet food plant in Pt Lisas on February 25, Dr Rowley described the country's slowness in treating developmental projects as specialising in "delay and obstruction."

He said these tedious processes especially hampered development in the country's non-energy sector and called for it to be addressed.

"We need to re-examine the speed at which we provide service to investors, because those investors, at this time in our history, are required, maybe in large numbers or small volumes, where together at the end – a $20 million here, $100 million there, a $50 million there – when they all add up, that's the new economy of TT, the non-oil economy."