Woodside’s CEO, Meg O’Neill and Shiva McMahon, EVP International Operations spoke at the company’s Investor Briefing Day about the future of the Calypso deepwater development in T&T. The Calypso development is one that the energy industry in T&T is keenly watching.

In recent months, the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries has publicized several meetings with Woodside leadership in T&T including with the new country manager, Kellyann Lochan.

The Calypso project comprises five discoveries:  Bongos, Bele, Tuk, Hi-Hat, Boom, in blocks 23(a) and 14 off the north east of Tobago. Woodside is the operator with a 70% along with JV partner BP which has 30% ownership. BP previously said that the project is "the first of its kind" for T&T.  

At the Investor Briefing, Shiva McMahon said that T&T was an advantaged region, with existing infrastructure and favourable demand outlook. She also said “We’re continuing to progress Calypso in the deep water. We have selected an infield host as the preferred development concept and are making really good progress on commercial and marketing fronts as well”.

Meg O’Neill said that Calypso continues to make good progress. 

She said “We’ve got many of the attributes that are constructive, so it is a good quality gas resource. It’s not particularly big. It’s in a jurisdiction though that is very supportive of development, so Trinidad and Tobago, their whole economy is founded on oil and gas. They’ve got LNG, they have petrochemical, so the Government is very supportive of progressing Calypso. Our partner is supportive, so that one is a field that’s got a bit of momentum.”

She added that “We want to make sure that our focus is in places where we have that line of sight to rapid development. Calypso's probably a great example of something that came to us in the merger, again a discovery in a country that strongly supports the industry, where again you've got the right fiscal framework, you've got the right commercial framework, you've got the right industrial setting. So, that's going to be our focus.”

O’Neill was asked about the importance of gaining access to Atlantic LNG for the commercial development of Calypso and if the government was facilitating that at the moment. She said “The government's been doing quite a bit of work actually to harmonise the fiscal terms for Atlantic LNG and to commercially restructure that venture. The reality for us though is we're interested in both LNG and we've got the option for sales into some of the petchem facilities.” 

She added that “One of the key forms of hydrogen that's going to be attractive is ammonia, and there are facilities in Trinidad and Tobago that produce ammonia. So, we want to make sure that we keep the door open, that we create a bit of commercial tension amongst all the potential processors of gas and consider options for us to offtake our product as well.” 

She indicated that this was very much a live conversation right now but added, “we believe we'd be able to access Atlantic LNG if that was our preferred development concept.”