Mala Baliraj, Chairperson, Energy Chamber of Trinidad and Tobago
Chairperson’s Address at the Trinidad & Tobago Energy Conference 2025
Mala Baliraj, Chairperson, Energy Chamber of Trinidad and Tobago
It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to the annual Trinidad & Tobago Energy Conference 2025. This is my first conference as the Chair of the Energy Chamber, having been elected to the position last December. I would like to thank my fellow Board members for the trust they have placed in me to lead this important national organisation. I would like to put on record, my sincere thanks to my predecessor as Chair, Mr Jerome Dookie, and to acknowledge on behalf of the Board, the leadership he provided to the Energy Chamber and the energy industry.
The theme of the 2025 conference is “investing for the future”. This theme reflects three key strategic imperatives for the future of the energy sector in Trinidad & Tobago:
Firstly, we require constant reinvestment if we are to increase national oil and gas production, especially in upstream drilling. We are seeing significant investments, with major projects currently in execution.
There are major projects upstream that have already been approved and are in execution:
Manatee,
Cypre,
Mento, and Coconut projects,
plus onshore and offshore development drilling campaigns
as well as the Brechin Castle solar farm.
There are also others that are advancing towards investment decisions:
Calypso,
Ginger,
Blackjack,
Onyx,
Dragon, and
Manakin-Cocuina,
as well as the NewGen green hydrogen project.
There are also significant exploration programmes planned or in execution, including both seismic
programmes and exploration drilling. It is important to note that there are significant opportunities not just in gas, but also in oil production.
In summary, there is significant investment taking place or in the pipeline across Trinidad & Tobago’s economic zone.
A major focus of the Conference last year was on accelerating the pace at which potential projects moved through the development cycle.
In the year since we have seen some very definite evidence that the approvals process has accelerated, especially with respect to the 2024 shallow water bid round and on the 2025 deepwater bid round. There is a specific panel on that topic tomorrow with a joint presentation between an Energy Chamber Taskforce and staff in the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries.
Despite this success, we need to maintain a constant focus on the pace at which project approvals and final investment decisions are taken, and projects executed. We need to increase the pace even further if we are to overcome the challenge of oil and gas production. The business of energy is timebound. Drilling is important, but there also needs to be continued investments into our energy infrastructure overall – our platforms, pipelines, tanks and process plants – to ensure our industry is safe and environmentally responsible. For this investment to take place we have to make sure that the sector is competitive across the entire value chain.
The second strategic imperative is that we need significant new investment into decreasing the carbon footprint of our energy sector. Despite shifting positions on the need for climate action in some major economies, the long-term trend is towards the market demanding lower carbon fuels and chemicals and we have the challenge of CBAMs that could impact the competitiveness of our commodity exports. For a small island nation like Trinidad & Tobago, there are also critical non-climate reasons to invest in renewables and energy efficiency: the less gas we use in electricity generation the more gas that will be available for foreign exchange earning LNG and petrochemical exports.
As previously noted, we have one major solar investment in execution, but there is scope for a lot more. There is significant opportunity for small household and commercial property level investments that individually have a tiny impact, but in aggregate could make a substantial contribution. There is no shortage of private capital waiting to make these investments. The approach to renewables must be multi-prong with an understanding that everyone - government, companies and individuals - can contribute through their actions.
The third strategic imperative is that we need to make sure we continue to invest in our people. The Trinidad & Tobago energy industry has generally done a good job at creating a skilled national labour force as is evident with the number of Trinidadians working in the sector locally and globally. The vast majority of people working in the industry are nationals: in 2024 ninety-nine point five percent of the over 11,000 contractor workers in the downstream industry who obtained a PLEA card were T&T citizens.
However, the industry is rapidly changing and the skills needed in the sector are being transformed through digitisation, automation and artificial intelligence. There must be greater focus on programs that invest heavily in training new young people entering the industry, as well as retraining the existing workforce.
The issue of improving the ease of doing business is also crucial if we are to create the climate for investment in production, decarbonisation and people.
It demands that we retool and reform our regulatory and policy making agencies to ensure that they can operate both effectively and efficiently.
While we can all point to “ease of doing business” issues with regulatory agencies, it is also important for the industry to look inwards for improvements as well. Too many of our own companies have legacy business processes that could be significantly improved. Artificial intelligence could be an important lever to help drive efficiency and speed up delivery. The reality is that these kinds of changes are not successful with just policy and process changes, but they require a mindset change of people.
Before we can simplify the ways we work we must adapt an agile mindset that encourages a willingness from people to disrupt the status quo and embrace innovative thinking at the individual level. At the conference last year there was a plea for companies to collaborate more. We have seen some success in this area, for example in vessel sharing between some major offshore operators, but there is more that can be done. We do have a workshop on Wednesday looking at a specific area of collaboration.
One of the realities that persons outside the sector often do not understand, is that the majority of jobs in the industry are with hundreds of service companies and contractors and not with the major operator companies. These are the businesses that execute most of the activities that keep the industry running. This makes it imperative that these companies in the chain are supported and there is an environment in which they can flourish to the benefit of all.
The Energy Chamber has placed a lot of emphasis over the past year on ensuring that we focus on all of our member companies. Coming out of the 2023 Local Content Forum, the Energy Chamber placed a focus on making sure that companies were making timely payments to contractors and sub-contractors. This was identified as a key element that could significantly improve the cashflow of smaller member companies. I am pleased to say that forty-four percent of our members did report improvements over the previous six months at the November 2024 Local Content Forum, though obviously more work needs to be done.
Another area where the Energy Chamber has placed a particular emphasis over the years, is helping our service industry meet the basic HSE requirements of Trinidad & Tobago based operators through the Safe to Work or STOW programme. This has contributed to building the safety culture of our industry and supported the goal of zero accidents and injuries.
We have all recently been tragically reminded of the high risks that we face in the sector. As industry leaders we must never lose our focus on the huge responsibility that we hold to keep the frontline workforce safe. On behalf of the entire Energy Chamber membership, I would like to again express our most sincere condolences to the family and friends of Pete Phillip and to share in their grief.
There are three hundred and seventy-five STOW certified companies in the industry, covering the full gamut from major multinational service companies to locally owned small businesses. Seventy-two percent of STOW certified companies (that’s two hundred and seventy of them) have less that fifty employees and thirty percent have less than ten employees.
We recognise that achieving and maintaining STOW certification is a major investment for these small businesses and as an industry, we must acknowledge and celebrate the commitment that these small companies have made to safety. We also recognise that one of the areas of major concern is the cost associated with consulting advice and with training of staff for certification. It is also noted that currently it takes too long between the end of an audit and a certificate being issued. These items are very much on the agenda of the Energy Chamber’s Management and Board and we are fully committed to the continuous improvement of the programme.
If as an industry, we are to secure the investments needed for a sustainable future, we need to be working on both the big picture items around gas production and decarbonisation, while at the same time addressing and improving the day to day practical operational issues impacting the sector. The Energy Chamber continues to be committed to the whole picture, and we hope that is reflected in the diversity of the content that will be delivered here over the next two days as well as the conversations in the coffee breaks, lunches and cocktails. And perhaps even during the 5K Energy Run (or walk for some of us) on Wednesday morning.
It has been my privilege to share these thoughts on behalf of the Board and I Thank-you for your time and I look forward to engaging with as many of you as possible over the next few days.