Four international companies are interested in acquiring the Pointe-a-Pierre oil refinery, Energy Minister Stuart Young said on Friday, giving an update on the energy sector in the House of Representatives against an opposition motion condemning Government's handling of the economy.
He said the four were now going through the request for proposals (RFP) process to acquire the plant, and he and Finance Minister Colm Imbert were monitoring developments.
"There has been a visit from the first one. The second is either here now or are about to visit.
"They continue to go through the RFP process with international advisers, so all is not lost with the refinery and that continues to go on."
Overall he said, "The restructuring of Petrotrin has gone well from an economic and financial point of view."
He said in June the revenues of Heritage Petroleum Company Ltd, the State's exploration and production company, were reported as rising from $3.2 billion to $4.9 billion for the first nine months of 2020 and 2021 respectively. This equated to a rise in profit from $700 million to $1.2 billion, he added. Young said Paria Fuel Trading must be praised for supplying fuel to TT and Caricom countries seamlessly and at a profit.
Lamenting the former UNC government had drained $16 billion from the National Gas Company including $1 billion for the controversial Beetham Wastewater plant, Young boasted that NGC had just made a profit of $1.05 billion (after tax), compared to last year's loss.
Saying TT must stay competitive to attract foreign investment in the energy sector, he said his ministry and the Ministry of Finance were reviewing the supplemental petroleum tax (SPT) regime.
"We will be coming with an SPT fiscal regime that will be reformed. We're looking at it and they are working the numbers."
Young gave an update on TT's share of the formerly unitary Loran-Manatee gas field straddling the TT/Venezuela maritime border, (which TT will now explore alone due to sanctions against Venezuela).
"On the gas side, we've shown by the Manatee PSC (production sharing contract) negotiated with Shell that we can get across the line and remain competitive globally in attracting US$1.8 billion to the Manatee field." He said many other upstream projects would also attract investment.
"We've launched a deep water bid round. I've just come back from Houston with a team promoting that. There's a lot of interest from the current players and fortunately for TT we have major upstream producers. We have EOG, BHP, Shell, BP and smaller ones like Perenco and Touchstone. Some of these are interested in those deep-water rounds."
Young said in the first half of 2022 he will launch bid rounds for shallow waters and onshore.
"Again, we have already had a number of these companies nominate blocks that they are interested in." He said the Government was working hard for the population to ensure TT remains competitive in a rapidly-changing global energy landscape.
"We'll fight hard to derive the maximum benefit for the people of
