Young: Govt reaches Manatee deal with Shell

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Trinidad and Tobago’s perseverance with the Loran Manatee field has paved the way for the largest gas production deal in decades, according to Energy Minister Stuart Young.

While addressing the Senate as the budget debate continued in the Upper House yesterday, Young revealed major strides had been made in the project.

“I am happy to announce here today that last week, the Cabinet of Trinidad and Tobago took a decision and gave us a green light to go ahead with the Manatee contract…..Loran Manatee is a gas field that straddles, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela. We’ve heard about it since 2010. Nothing was done,” said Young.

T&T is developing its share of the giant Loran/ Manatee field which has 2.7 TCF of gas on the Trinidad side and which in total has 10 tcf with 7.3 tcf on the Venezuela side of the border but could not be jointly developed due to US sanctions against the regime of Nicolas Maduro.

“Let us develop it. People said it couldn’t be done, I am happy to say today we negotiated a PSC with Shell. The Manatee project has, we’ve got any green light to go ahead with the PSC. In a few weeks I’m hoping we’ll be able to sign that agreement that is going to keep this single largest new gas production contract, and gas production in Trinidad and Tobago for decades,” said the Minister.

Young said this development was further proof that the Energy Sector would still play a major part of this country’s economy going forward.

Young explained that while the world was moving away from fossil fuels, there was still a large window for gas based economies as the timeline for the phasing out of gas was longer than those of other traditional fossil fuels coal and oil.

“Don’t let the Chicken Little syndrome that is taking place in some quarters that the energy sector is suddenly going to vanish from Globe, frighten anyone,” he said.

Young continued, “The first one that is contributing to the global energy warming crisis is coal. And that’s the first one that the global energy sector and developed countries are moving away from oil and gas have imagined longer Horizon. The Horizon for oil may be more limited”