Gas find good for TT

Former People’s Partnership energy minister Kevin Ramnarine cautioned that the population should not expect immediate production from the discovery as this would take several years before the field becomes operationalised.

“These two wells will take a couple years before they come into production as this requires infrastructure to be put down, so I would temper expectations of the population by saying this might take two to three years before we see natural gas from Savannah and Macadamia fields coming into the natural gas market,” Ramnarine said.

He added that fiscal initiative of the Partnership which included incentives for developmental and exploration drilling played a key role in encouraging the drilling program.

For his part, Conrad Enill, the energy minister in the then Patrick Manning-led administration said the find would add to the production of gas in Trinidad and Tobago as it deals with two issues; shortages and; the ability to contribute positively to the country’s coffers.

“Revenue means that government would have more choices available to it in terms of how it manages its expenditure profile,” Enill said.

“It will also be able to talk about growth in the economy because this is going to shift it up a little bit and whereas before there was absolutely nothing on the horizon, this certainly signifies that we are in a little better position than we would have been in before.

What I think is important though is that it is new technology that was able to get bpTT to make this announcement and if you apply that therefore to the Trinidad and Tobago acreage, it is very possible that the new technology that they will employ can see things that were not there before. And I think that is a very exciting possibility,” Enill said. Ramnarine was in full agreement, saying the Ocean Bottom Cable Seismic survey had allowed bpTT to have a better view of the acreage.

“One of the main things which made this possible was the application of new 3D seismic technology between 2011 and 2013 called the Ocean Bottom Cable Seismic survey which totally changed the game for BP in the Columbus Basin,” Ramnarine said.

The Basin is east of Point Radix, Mayaro and drilling took place in shallow to average water depths. He also pointed out that the company had been planning these two wells since 2011 saying, “things like this don’t just drop from the sky suddenly, this has been in planning, well design, success evaluation- those things take years to happen.” “It’s good news for Trinidad and Tobago.

It’s going to help us in the future because we need as much gas as possible,” he said.

Asked whether this find would mean the end of gas shortages, Enill said, “I don’t think it will be the end.

I think it will relieve some of the pressure because the contracted volumes for plants to operate at maximum capacity, they have to allocate the gas on a particular basis and dependent on how costly this gas is, it will either go into LNG or it will go into the petrochemical sector. But that is something that NGC (the National Gas Company) will have to work out.”