Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Dr the Hon Keith Rowley, Minister of Energy and Energy Industries, Stuart Young MP, bp CEO Bernard Looney and bp Senior Vice President for Trinidad, Claire Fitzpatrick discussed T&T’s energy future as they met in London on Nov 4th.
This meeting was timely as leaders gathered in Glasgow for the COP 26 meeting and Mr Looney welcomed the opportunity to re-connect with the Trinidad and Tobago delegation and discuss how bp is progressing on its path to becoming a net zero company by 2050 or sooner and how the company can support Trinidad and Tobago in its energy transition goals.
bp is T&T’s largest natural gas producer, accounting for approximately 50 percent of national production. Natural gas will continue to play an important role in the energy transition globally and Mr Looney shared with the delegation how bp is playing its part by maximizing production from its existing facilities in Trinidad as well as working to bring new developments online. In September, the company announced first gas from its Matapal development and is now focused on bringing the Cassia Compression development online in 2022. Looney also announced bpTT’s plans to resume its infill drilling programme in T&T in 2022.
Partnering with others is also an important part of bp’s strategy and Mr Looney shared that bp is looking forward to the final results in the current deepwater appraisal programme in which bp is a partner with BHP. Additionally, he shared the progress bp and EOG are making towards the sanction of Mento, a new field development to be operated by EOG.
“These new developments being delivered by bp and our partners represent billions of dollars of investment into Trinidad and Tobago and will be important for sustaining gas production for the country and supporting bp’s strategy to deliver resilient and focused hydrocarbons,” said Bernard Looney.
In support of its net zero ambitions, bp is also investing in activities to sustainably reduce carbon emissions in its operations in Trinidad and is investing in new low carbon projects in the country, including the country’s first utility scale solar project. The company is part of a consortium with Lightsource bp and Shell that is working towards delivering 112MW of solar electricity capacity by 2023.
Prime Minister Rowley and Mr Looney also discussed the restructuring of Atlantic LNG which remains a priority for the Government, bp and Atlantic partners. Atlantic shareholders and the Government are actively exploring the commercial restructuring of Atlantic with the objective of creating a simpler commercial structure to support more efficient utilization of all trains and improve value to Trinidad and Tobago.
Bernard Looney said: “It was great to meet with Dr Rowley again. A lot has happened since our last meeting, including first gas from our Matapal project. We could not have successfully delivered Matapal ahead of schedule without the support of the government throughout the pandemic. bp remains committed to the long standing partnership that we have with Trinidad and Tobago and our discussions focused on how we can continue to work together to support future investments in T&T’s energy sector.”