All stories
Total, a French oil and gas major, has begun taking steps to execute an exploration well in French Guiana, adding to the new wave of exploration being done in the southern Caribbean. Total is also hoping to mirror some success in the Guyana Basin like U.S. oil and gas major, Exxon.
Despite an uptake in activity in 2018 due to new drilling programmes coming on stream, local companies are not feeling optimistic about their business prospects.
The decline in Trinidad and Tobago’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports over the past few years, on the back of falling natural gas production, has seen big declines in the volume of exports to Argentina and Brazil. Volumes destined for Trinidad and Tobago’s other major markets, such as Chile, USA, Central America and the Caribbean have remained relatively robust.
Over 36 years after being discovered, the Iguana gas field in Block 1(a) is on track to begin production in 2018. Local drilling contractor, Well Services Petroleum Company Limited (Well Services), has announced the completion of a three-well development campaign for the Iguana field, which is owned and operated by DeNovo Energy Limited (DeNovo).
NiQuan Energy has finally made progress on the gas-to-liquids facility (GTL). The project has been uncertain for quite some time now and there have been many hurdles along the way, but it appears now that NiQuan has the green light to proceed.
Weeks after the announcement of an eighth find in Guyana by Exxon and the addition of a third drillship to the drilling programme, SBM Offshore has announced that it has received another contract for a second floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) unit.
This month, it was revealed in BHP Billiton’s (BHP) operational review for the year ended 30 June 2018, that the company has had success at the Victoria-1 well, drilled in the deepwater offshore Trinidad in TTDAA 5. This is a great indicator of hydrocarbons in the deepwater off Trinidad.
The much anticipated Angelin platform has arrived in Trinidad and Tobago. Angelin, which will be BPTT’s 15th offshore platform, was fabricated in Altamira, Mexico. Construction of the topside and jacket was completed at Altamira and sailed on June 30th. The platform arrived at the end of July.
BHP: EOI for provision of long lead drilling and completion materials related to the offshore Ruby Project
Petrotrin is and will continue to dominate the news. And for good reason. We must keep asking ourselves how we got where we are. Why Petrotrin – the company supposed to be our crown jewel – ended up in such dire situation. And how we can prevent more joining the same fate as Petrotrin’s refinery, the Arcelor steel plant, the idle platform production sites in La Brea and many other abandoned or underutilised manufacturing sites across the islands.
Employees from across the business sector have ignored calls from trade union leaders to participate in an illegal national strike.
If the government wants to make a success of the new upstream focused Petrotrin one of the issues it will need to address is the impact of Supplemental Petroleum Tax (SPT) on investment in the oil sector. It will be difficult to attract the necessary capital investment unless this long outstanding issue is resolved.
The Petrotrin Point-a-Pierre refinery has been a major customer for many of the service companies and contractors who make up the membership of the Energy Chamber. A recent survey of over 400 companies who have been certified to work as contractors in the energy sector has revealed that 59% of these companies have provided goods and/or services to the refinery over the last 5 years. Thirty-nine percent of them currently provide goods and/or services.
There are currently four drillships operating in the waters of Suriname, T&T and Guyana. All four are exploring for hydrocarbons in water depths > 1000 meters. In June 2018, BHP Billiton resumed deepwater exploration drilling in TTDAA 5 when it spudded the Victoria 1 well. BHP has reported that, Victoria 1 encountered hydrocarbons (most likely natural gas) but apart from that not much more is known.
If the Joint Trade Union Movement of Trinidad and Tobago’s call goes ahead, the country will face another long weekend, this time through an illegal general strike this coming Friday.
Except for the fact you will never hear the word ‘strike’ coming from the unions’ leadership. Why? Because the Industrial Court has a history of narrowly interpreting the legislation and ruling in terms of what the action is called – not what the action is in substance.
Given Guyana’s demand for fuels, and its oil and gas production prospects, what are the economics of investing in domestic refining assets?
The Petrotrin Board of Directors met on 2018 Tuesday August 28 with its employee
representative unions and the Company’s management to announce plans to end Petrotrin’s oilrefining operations at Pointe-a-Pierre and to redesign entirely its Exploration and Production
business. The restructuring exercise is geared to curtail losses at the state owned oil company and get it on a path to sustainable profitability.
Last Tuesday, Trinidad and Tobago shook with a powerful earthquake, making many of us fear for our lives. Thankfully, despite some material damage, no lives were lost.
First, the good news. The new Angelin platform, commissioned by bpTT, is home to be installed. If all goes well, it will start producing much needed additional gas in early 2019.
