Chairman's Remarks at the 10th Annual Local Content Forum

Chairman's Remarks at the 10th Annual Local Content Forum
Jerome Dookie, Chairman, Energy Chamber of Trinidad and Tobago

Good morning and welcome to the 10th Annual Local Content Forum. This is the only forum in T&T dedicated to Local Content Development in T&T.  We’re excited to see continued support of this event by our sponsors and stakeholders. I’m also pleased to see so many people choose this event over the scheduled World Cup matches.

This is my first address as Chairman of the Energy Chamber, and I’m thrilled that it is at this event. The Forum is a critical part of our calendar of events at the Energy Chamber and it has the greatest impact on our members in the energy services category, which makes up the largest portion of our membership.

The forum started 10 years ago when we were approached by BHP Billiton to create a forum that allows operators and contractors to collaborate toward local content and capability development. Despite the changes in BHP over the years, the company has been unrelenting in its commitment to this event.

10 years later, we’re happy to see that Woodside Energy has taken up the mantle to be the primary sponsor of this event. I would also like to thank the other sponsors Atlantic, Massy Wood, Touchstone Exploration, The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited and bpTT for their sponsorship and their commitment to local content.

Throughout the morning we will hear from several of our sponsor companies as they bring official remarks and through their participation in the tabletop sessions.

Local content today takes on a whole new meaning for us here in T&T. In many ways we’ve accomplished a significant level of local content penetration in the energy value chain but there are still many opportunities to increase the value retained in the local economy. The ever-evolving energy system means that our contractor base must continuously evolve.

Energy services is a significant contributor to the GDP of the country, but this has been slowing down due to limited projects within country, and at the Energy Chamber we are committed to encouraging growth in opportunities for the services sector.

We believe that our advocacy for fiscal reform will lead to an improved investment climate which would unlock projects in the upstream oil sector, while also encouraging the faster sanctioning of projects.

By bringing more projects on stream, we grow the scope to provide more services in T&T.

As we do this however, I must stress the importance of finding an unbiased and consistent basis of measuring local content. The Energy Chamber is focused on data driven decisions and when it comes to local content, we need to measure and equate apples to apples and not be driven by emotional responses. We cannot change what we cannot measure, and this is why we’ve developed the Local Content Management System. This system has been running for the past 2 years and we’ve started to see some positive aspects of the data coming out of the system. Later this morning we’ll see some of this data being presented and it will be discussed in the breakout session.

We’ve also kept a keen eye on the development of regional energy plays in the Caribbean. Guyana and Suriname are key growth markets where we see opportunities for T&T companies. In addition, there are other key markets within the region which are important for the growth and development of energy within the region. More and more countries like Jamaica, Barbados, Grenada, Dominica, Dominican Republic and Cuba have also shown their need for access to services and equipment out of Trinidad and Tobago.

We have begun to work with National Energy which has been appointed to lead the export promotion of energy services for T&T. Today we will have a presentation from Aribeca Cazaubon, who will explain a bit more about their role in exporting services and regional integration of energy services.

Critically, the world is demanding more energy, but it is demanding it with a lower carbon footprint. The energy services sector must respond in a way that supports the thrust toward a lower carbon future. Developing a method for reducing emissions in the supply chain will be crucial to support NetZero targets of operators and countries worldwide. Finding ways to become more efficient in operations and maintenance must therefore be a key area of discussion within the industry.

One key area of reducing emissions is shifting to lower carbon fuels. I am pleased to share that, today, Proman’s first methanol powered vessel is docked in Port of Spain and is tangible proof that we can significantly reduce emissions in marine transport.

During the tabletop discussions today, we will also discuss some of the main areas affecting the energy services industry, one of which is the availability of finance. This is an area that continues to plague many firms in the private sector and today we hope to have a rich dialogue on what can be done to unlock financing.

In addition, we will also discuss the relationship between main contractors and subcontractors. Many of our members do not work directly for operators, but rather work through the major contractors. So when we talk about local content, we need to think about the whole ecosystem of support services.

In closing, I would like to say thanks to all of you for attending today’s session. This event sets the targets for local content for the next year and is of tremendous importance to the Energy Chamber as we seek to foster collaboration in this area.  I wish everyone a fruitful participation in this morning’s forum.