Business

PM Rowley: Gov’t negotiations on energy resulted in TT$11B in revenue

Loop News

December 8, 2023 9:37 PM ET

3 mins read

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley said government has been able to negotiate energy agreements which have resulted in additional revenue amounting to around TT$11 billion.

Speaking at a media briefing today at the Diplomatic Centre, Dr Rowley said they were able to come to agreements that would remove the risk of claims being made against the National Gas Company (NGC).

The statements were made following meetings between Dr Rowley and energy companies bp and Shell in London over the past couple weeks. 

“I was very disappointed when I heard a former Minister of Energy describing our recent accomplishment as no big thing. Ask yourself what would have been our position, in an era of declining volumes production, declining market prices…what would have been our position had this $11 billion not come into our revenue?

Dr Rowley said additionally if NGC didn’t provide gas according to the agreed contracts, those contracts allowed for terms where claims could have been made against NGC for not providing the gas.

“The Minister at the time told the country ‘don’t worry, we know there’s a problem but that problem is temporary, it has to do with maintenance and as soon as the maintenance is over we’ll go back to normal…it was not maintenance it was a genuine decline from our fields.

Dr Rowley said there was a total of around US$1.3 billion in claims against NGC for not being able to supply gas to which it was contracted.

“Today I can tell you Minister Young and his team…negotiated away virtually all of these claims to get the industry back into health.”

He said government has also negotiated the capacity for those types of claims out of future contracts.

Dr Rowley said government was able to come to agreements regarding NGC for the period August 2018 to September 2023 which resulted in an additional US$9,494,555 (TT$6.095 billion)

He said government had introduced an additional tax for royalties on natural gas which for the period October 2018 to August 2023 accrued US$407,377,447.

Additionally, Dr Rowley said government stood its ground regarding agreements on gas contracts, and this action has resulted in government collecting around US$308 million.

“Had we not [stood our ground] we would have been deprived of US$308 million based only on the new agreements and that’s an additional $2.561 billion that we would have lost had we not got the agreement when we were standing our ground.”

Dr Rowley said the total revenue coming out of those negotiations would be around TT$11 billion.