The national natural gas audit for 2021 and 2022 was released earlier this week at the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries. Minister Young along with the consultants from DeGolyer and MacNaughton (D&M) of Dallas, Texas shared data from the audit and highlighted the growth in reserves position of the country.

Minister Young described the report as encouraging.

He said, “The P1 + C1 Technically Recoverable Resources, which were formerly referred to as Proved Reserves, experienced a 6.2% increase from 2020 to 2021. Between 2020 and 2021, there was a 168% Replacement of this Resource, compared to 57% replacement between 2019 and 2020.

This means that 0.93 TCF of P1 + C1 Resources produced were replaced by additions 7 amounting to 1.56 TCF in that year, raising the P1 + C1 Resources from 10.2 TCF to 10.9 TCF.”

He added that in 2022, the P1 + C1 Technically Recoverable Resources, experienced a 5.9% increase from 2021 to 2022 and during the same period there was a 165% Replacement of this Resource. “This meant that 0.99 TCF of P1 + C1 Resources produced were replaced by additions amounting to 1.63 TCF in that year, raising the P1 + C1 Resources from 10.9 TCF to 11.5 TCF”, he said.

During his contribution, Minister Young cited 3 operators who contributed to the positive growth in the P1 + C1 Technically Recoverable Resources: Woodside, Shell and Touchstone Exploration.

The Minister shared that Woodside operated assets volumes increased by 49% during the period, because of two Bongos field appraisal wells which successfully confirmed 8 volumes in blocks in the North, Central and South sections of the field during the second half of 2021.

He said that the second largest volume increase by an operator, came from Shell, which added large Manatee volumes because of the 2019 agreement between the Government of Trinidad and Tobago and the Government of Venezuela, which set the allowable recoverable volume on the Trinidad side and the execution of the Manatee Production Sharing Contract on November 17, 2021.

And thirdly, he indicated that Touchstone tripled its volumes consequent on the CAS-Deep-1 well drilled in the first quarter of 2021 which led to a revision of the gas-in-place estimate and an increase in the expected recovery.

He also showed optimism about the opportunities for cross border gas with Venezuela to add to the volumes of natural gas to the producing fields.

Previously, the natural gas audits were conducted by Ryder Scott. However, after the Ryder Scott contract ended, DeGolyer and MacNaughton (D&M) won a competitive tender process to conduct the audits from 2021- 2025.