One of the topics discussed at the Local Content Forum this week was creating a uniform pre-qualification system across the energy sector. This idea got resounding support from the members who attended the Forum from across the supply chain. The discussion at the Forum concentrated on how this could best be achieved and the issues that will need to be overcome.
Given the maturity of Trinidad & Tobago’s oil, gas and petrochemical sector there is a lot of pressure on the supply chain to be as efficient as possible and to cut-out unnecessary costs. The energy transition in progress means that international energy companies are being extremely disciplined about where they allocate capital, so it is important for a country like Trinidad & Tobago to always focus on efficiency and making it easy to do business.
A lot of the time we focus on efficiency of state agencies and the delays that this causes. This is one of the key recommendations of our 6-point plan to secure the future of the gas industry. We rightly need to keep up our focus on speeding up approvals and cutting unnecessary red-tape and reducing the administrative burden (also a topic of conversation at the Local Content Forum). But there are also things that the industry can do itself internally to be more efficient. Standardisation is one of the things that industry can control and a well designed and implemented pre-qualification system could be important in that regard.
The focus will have to be on reducing administrative burdens and reducing the time and cost associated with pre-qualification across the industry. The existing Safe to Work (STOW) database can provide a good foundation that can be built on as we develop the overall uniform pre-qualification system: a lot of the data that is needed in a pre-qualification system is already captured in that mature system. This goes beyond the HSE management system data that is captured in STOW, as other data on service companies is also produced through a STOW audit.
There is also the recent experiences of the Office of Procurement Regulation (OPR) registration system that we can learn from as we develop our system, and which we will have to ensure a level of integration with if the industry pre-qualification system is going to include the state companies in the energy sector (Heritage and the NGC group are very important customers for energy service companies, so we really must try to make sure they are within the industry pre-qualification system).
There are of course issues around data security and transparency that we are going to have to tackle, but to me those are technical challenges that can be overcome with the right team, dedication and processes in place. As with any change programme, I see the bigger challenge as the human-side of the transformation. We are going to have to make sure that procurement professionals in operator companies and the leadership of the services sector both see this as a process that is going to make their lives easier, create a level playing field and cut out duplication of effort.
We are off to an excellent start with the discussions at the Local Content Forum – my challenge now is to make sure we build on that momentum and bring everyone along on this journey.