In­ter­na­tion­al cred­it rat­ing agency S&P Glob­al has reaf­firmed the rat­ings of the First Cit­i­zens Bank Ltd (FCBL) at bbb.

Chair­man of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny Ger­ald Ramdeen yes­ter­day said ne­go­ti­a­tions with Shell are on­go­ing amid in­ter­na­tion­al re­ports that sug­gest Shell’s Aphrodite nat­ur­al gas project in Trinidad and To­ba­go is in doubt.

T&T may not reap the eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits ex­pect­ed from the re­cent­ly ne­go­ti­at­ed Venezue­lan nat­ur­al gas agree­ments, as the com­mer­cial in­cen­tives of­fered to Shell and BP could ul­ti­mate­ly en­cour­age the com­pa­nies to di­rect gas to­wards lu­cra­tive Eu­ro­pean and Asian LNG mar­kets, rather than the coun­try’s strug­gling petro­chem­i­cal sec­tor.

A grow­ing gov­er­nance con­tro­ver­sy at Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT) has placed the ma­jor­i­ty state-owned com­pa­ny un­der in­tense scruti­ny, over­shad­ow­ing its strongest fi­nan­cial per­for­mance in 17 years.

Chair­man of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NGC) Ger­ald Ramdeen is promis­ing even greater re­turns in the com­ing year, as the com­pa­ny an­nounced its high­est prof­it af­ter tax in more than a decade in 2025.

The Gov­ern­ment re­mains locked in ac­tive, high-lev­el dis­cus­sions with Nu­trien, one of the world's largest pro­duc­ers of ni­tro­gen-based fer­tilis­ers, and Methanex, the world's largest pro­duc­er and sup­pli­er of methanol, as it seeks to se­cure fu­ture in­vest­ment in T&T's en­er­gy sec­tor.

Gov­ern­ment ex­pects an­oth­er dif­fi­cult year ahead as it con­tin­ues to as­sess the full ex­tent of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s fi­nan­cial oblig­a­tions while try­ing to cre­ate room for eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery.

The fu­ture of Methanex Corp’s Trinidad op­er­a­tions has gone fur­ther in­to lim­bo af­ter the com­pa­ny re­port­ed load­ing its fi­nal methanol car­go aboard the Lumphi­ni Park ves­sel on Mon­day, Au­gust 17.

For­mer min­is­ter of en­er­gy and en­er­gy in­dus­tries Stu­art Young has de­fend­ed the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) man­age­ment of the do­mes­tic en­er­gy sec­tor, as­sert­ing that the cur­rent surge in state rev­enues is the di­rect re­sult of a land­mark re­struc­tur­ing of At­lantic LNG ex­e­cut­ed dur­ing his tenure.

The Cen­tral Bank said it has im­ple­ment­ed tar­get­ed ini­tia­tives aimed at im­prov­ing the ef­fi­cien­cy, trans­paren­cy and dis­tri­b­u­tion of for­eign ex­change in the lo­cal mar­ket over the past two months.

We may nev­er have thought about be­com­ing an en­tre­pre­neur. Or you felt that it was for in­cred­i­bly spe­cial peo­ple. They were born that way, you pon­dered. Then one day a spark hap­pened. An op­por­tu­ni­ty came to you, and you thought you could do it. It was a side hus­tle, but you liked not just the few dol­lars, but the thrill of start­ing your own.

In Trinidad and To­ba­go, we all know that ac­cess to for­eign ex­change has be­come in­creas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult. Whether you need for­eign cur­ren­cy for trav­el, ed­u­ca­tion, on­line shop­ping, soft­ware, busi­ness ex­pens­es or life abroad, ac­cess­ing your own mon­ey can feel like an un­nec­es­sary bat­tle.