Geological Society
Most of us understand the criticality of the energy sector and its impact on the nation's economy.
TT has a well-established energy sector, over 100 years, which spans many cycles of "boom or bust".
The advent of the natural gas sector in Trinidad through the late '90s into the 2000s showed significant promise, with TT being one of the world's largest exporters of LNG. The birth of Atlantic LNG has been a huge revenue earner for a country of this size, with four liquefaction plants, serving exports to all corners of the globe. This period is directly linked to the growth of the petrochemical sector and industrial growth in Pt Lisas.
Underpinning this has been the role of international oil and gas companies (IOCs) in the island, some of the world's largest, who have invested significant amounts of money to find and develop the hydrocarbon resources which we hold.
Recent years have provided significant challenges to the upstream industry in TT. Global commodity prices are challenged and our nation has felt the economic ramifications through lower revenues. This is exemplified by recent news of petrochemical plant closures, Atlantic LNG supply issues, mixed results from both exploration bid rounds and exploration and production (E&P) drilling campaigns offshore. This perfect storm on the bedrock of our economy (~28 per cent GDP) combined with the global covid19 pandemic is a crisis that we all should appreciate and understand.
Gas supply has been something we take for granted in Trinidad. It seems a distant past when the Columbus basin (see map) proved to be a rich playground for finding hydrocarbons. There was a hugely successful patch in the 1990s with the advent of 3D seismic technology, which 'changed the game' for professionals to get a picture of the hydrocarbon reservoirs and where to target. Significant developments have fuelled the conveyor belt of gas supply to domestic and LNG markets. In the last ten years there has been a steady decline in production from the highs of four bcf/d to 2.5 bcf/d. This production decline results greatly reduced revenues to our nation and needs to be halted or reversed.
Trinidad has seen a shift of activity into deep-water areas, where finding oil and gas reserves becomes technically challenging. Discoveries are required to be sizeable to meet economic thresholds and be monetised. The 'low hanging fruit' have been picked from the different basins. With the juxtaposition of lower oil and gas prices, companies are challenged more than ever to make projects economically attractive (even though we are seeing somewhat of a rebound currently mainly as big nations move past covid19).
One has to keep in mind that for every molecule of gas removed from the ground, the incremental cost to extract a new molecule goes up. Imagine spilling some cooking oil on the road and trying to wipe it up with napkins - it takes only a little effort to wipe up the majority at the start, but the effort (and cost) required to recover the remainder just keeps r
