Ramnarine: Centrica sale of assets a good thing

Kevin Ramnarine told the Business Day that Centrica was not developing its acreage and its sale of the blocks to Shell will finally allow this to take place.

“The main prize that Shell would have gotten is Block 22, which is to the north west of Tobago and has reserves of 1 to 1.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas,” said Ramnarine.

This, Ramnarine said is part of a larger strategy by Shell to marry the new Centrica assets with their existing North Coast marine area assets, bringing more gas into Trinidad and Tobago.

“It shows that Shell has an ambition to stay in TT for the long term and to develop a robust upstream position,” he said.

Ramnarine added that Shell was already the majority owner of Trains II, III and IV and are minority owners of Train I.

“I think it is a good thing for TT because Centrica was not doing anything with those assets. It is therefore best that the assets go into the hands of a company that is prepared to spend the money and develop those assets.”

The former energy minister also said this was good news for Tobago because the majority of Centrica’s assets were located near the island. He told Business Day, this had the potential to get Tobago more closely involved with the energy sector.

“I keep saying that Tobago has its role and cannot be a spectator in this,” said Ramnarine.

According to Centrica’s website, its interests in the NCMA-1, NCMA-4 and Block 22 gas assets were sold to Shell for US$30 million in keeping with a company decision to focus its attention on its European operation.

The company also sold assets in Canada in September.