Government signs agreement with Bp and Shell

The Government on Thursday signed an agreement with energy giants Bp and Shell, that will lead to “significant” financial benefits to the twin island republic.
During Thursday’s post-Cabinet media conference, min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said the agree­ment in­volves new pric­ing arrange­ments, the ex­ten­sion of the At­lantic LNG Train 1 by a fur­ther five years, and the abil­i­ty of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) to ex­port liqui­fied nat­ur­al gas (LNG) on be­half of Trinidad and Tobago.
According to Young, said the dis­cus­sions start­ed in April when Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley led a del­e­ga­tion to the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing (CHOGM) in Lon­don.
He added that out of that meet­ing, all three par­ties agreed to ap­point em­pow­ered ne­go­ti­at­ing teams to sit and ne­go­ti­ate terms of con­tracts go­ing for­ward.
“I am hap­py to say that af­ter months of very in­tense and ag­gres­sive ne­go­ti­a­tions, the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and Tobago has reached an agree­ment with Bp and al­so with Shell,” Young said.
At­lantic LNG’s Train 1 was due to end op­er­a­tions in April 2019 but the min­is­ter now says it will con­tin­ue at least un­til 2024.
An LNG train is a liq­ue­fac­tion and pu­rifi­ca­tion fa­cil­i­ty that con­dens­es gas in­to a liq­uid state.
At­lantic LNG has four trains in its Point Fortin plant.
The con­ti­in­u­a­tion of the train will al­low for the con­tin­u­a­tion of jobs and fur­ther pro­duc­tion of liqui­fied nat­ur­al gas for ex­port and for sale to NGC.
NGC, Bp and Shell are among the share­hold­ers of Train 1.
The min­is­ter told reporters that he could not dis­close the new pric­ing for­mu­la agreed to by the en­er­gy com­pa­nies and gov­ern­ment, but says the new for­mu­la “sig­nif­i­cant­ly en­hances the rev­enue for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go”.
He said this will al­so be the first time that the NGC will have the abil­i­ty to sell LNG car­goes of LNG on be­half of the country.
“That is a ma­jor achieve­ment that we did not have be­fore,” Young said.
The min­is­ter said that the agree­ments were con­clud­ed on Wednesday and more de­tails will be re­vealed in time.