When it comes to en­er­gy, T&T’s needs to main­tain the cur­rent pace of ac­tiv­i­ty in the main­stay of the econ­o­my and do every­thing pos­si­ble to con­tin­ue to at­tract in­vest­ment in a very com­pet­i­tive in­ter­na­tion­al en­vi­ron­ment. 

Fur­ther, any re­forms that can make this coun­try more at­trac­tive and which can fur­ther ac­cel­er­ate the pace of de­ci­sion-mak­ing should be ac­tive­ly pur­sued, ad­vised Dr Dax Dri­ver, CEO and pres­i­dent of the T&T En­er­gy Cham­ber. 

He told the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian, the cham­ber has worked with the Min­istry of En­er­gy over the past year on stream­lin­ing some process­es, adding that more in­for­ma­tion on that ini­tia­tive will be out­lined at the T&T’s En­er­gy Con­fer­ence, be­gin­ning to­mor­row at the Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain.

The con­fer­ence will al­so ex­plore sev­er­al per­ti­nent is­sues such as, “What are the poli­cies and plans need­ed to con­tin­ue to at­tract in­vest­ment in­to our in­dus­try and en­sure that it con­tin­ues to de­liv­er for the peo­ple of T&T and be­yond?” “How do we en­sure that these in­vest­ments in the en­er­gy and as­so­ci­at­ed in­dus­tri­al sec­tors gen­er­ate val­ue for our cit­i­zens?” and “How can we se­cure the nec­es­sary in­vest­ments to re­duce the green­house gas­es as­so­ci­at­ed with our prod­ucts and en­sure we can com­pet­i­tive­ly ac­cess in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets?” ac­cord­ing to the En­er­gy Cham­ber’s web­site.

On what is T&T is do­ing to at­tract in­vest­ment in the en­er­gy sec­tor and whether enough ef­fort is be­ing made, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en the ma­tur­ing of T&T’s fields, Dri­ver said there is sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ment tak­ing place in this coun­try’s up­stream sec­tor at the mo­ment, with a num­ber of ma­jor projects in ex­e­cu­tion, such as the Shell Man­a­tee project, the bpTT Cypre project, the bpTT/EOG Men­to and Co­conut projects, and bpTT, Shell and NGC’s so­lar farm at Brechin Cas­tle. 

He not­ed there are al­so some ma­jor projects work­ing to­wards fi­nal in­vest­ment de­ci­sions out­lin­ing, “We have al­so re­cent­ly seen pro­duc­tion shar­ing con­tracts be­ing signed for new ex­plo­ration blocks and planned ex­plo­ration ac­tiv­i­ties on­shore, in the shal­low wa­ter ar­eas and in the deep­wa­ter. This is all pos­i­tive news for the fu­ture of the oil and gas in­dus­try.”

The three-day an­nu­al T&T En­er­gy Con­fer­ence tra­di­tion­al­ly at­tracts in­ter­na­tion­al and re­gion­al stake­hold­ers apart from lo­cal in­dus­try play­ers.

This year’s theme is “In­vest­ing for the fu­ture.”

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on CNC3’s Morn­ing Brew pro­gramme on Tues­day, Dri­ver fur­ther ex­pound­ed, “The theme re­al­ly re­flects a lot of the ad­vo­ca­cy work we did over the last few years, where Trinidad’s re­al is­sue that we have to re­solve is the gas pro­duc­tion is­sue and gas pro­duc­tion comes from in­vest­ment.

“So that’s a big rea­son be­hind the theme, that you have to in­vest in the up­stream gas pro­duc­tion if we are to in­crease the gas pro­duc­tion in the coun­try, to en­sure the fu­ture of Point Lisas and the fu­ture of At­lantic. So that’s part of what the theme is about, but there are al­so a lot of oth­er in­vest­ments. So the whole idea about in­vest­ing in peo­ple, this is a key thing that I think we’re try­ing to push this year on the agen­da.”

He main­tained there’s a need to in­crease in­vest­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly in T&T’s up­stream in gas and oil pro­duc­tion. This is the push for the in­dus­try, Dri­ver em­pha­sised.

“Be­cause of the na­ture of the oil and gas in­dus­try, you have to con­stant­ly be in­vest­ing to pro­duce more nat­ur­al gas, to keep our down­stream in­dus­try run­ning, and you have to al­so in­vest in the in­fra­struc­ture, safe­ty and process­es, and in peo­ple as well,” he said.

Asked whether rec­om­men­da­tions from pre­vi­ous con­fer­ences have been se­ri­ous­ly tak­en in­to con­sid­er­a­tion, Dri­ver said, “very much so,” adding, “And part of it is set­ting a gen­er­al con­ver­sa­tion, set­ting what the agen­da is and help­ing peo­ple fo­cus on is­sues.

“So I can think of times in the past when the con­fer­ence has re­al­ly set an agen­da for the year and re­al­ly helped fo­cus the con­ver­sa­tion. But there are al­so times when we have spe­cif­ic things com­ing out of one con­fer­ence then get worked on dur­ing the year. And one of the things I’m re­al­ly pleased about, and it’s go­ing to be re­port­ed on at the con­fer­ence this year is that in 2024, we had a young lead­ers pan­el at the con­fer­ence and they spoke about their ex­pe­ri­ences in this in­dus­try but then they com­mit­ted to work to­geth­er in the year af­ter­wards.”

Dri­ver fur­ther not­ed that there was a young leader from the Min­istry of En­er­gy, who worked with then younger lead­ers from the pri­vate sec­tor com­pa­nies, not­ing that they have been work­ing in­side the min­istry over the past year, look­ing at process­es and sys­tems to speed up de­ci­sion-mak­ing in­side the min­istry.

“So we had the pri­vate sec­tor help­ing the min­istry with their sys­tems and pro­ce­dures to move things faster. It’s been a won­der­ful sto­ry and I think quite suc­cess­ful and that’s go­ing to be re­port­ed on at the con­fer­ence this year. So you see there are very spe­cif­ic things where some­thing com­ing out of the con­fer­ence re­sults in ac­tion and then we’re go­ing to be re­port­ing on that this year,” Dri­ver ex­plained.

He said the aim is to repli­cate that as the younger peo­ple in the in­dus­try not on­ly have a re­al pas­sion and de­vote their time but they can al­so of­fer a new way of think­ing.

The cham­ber’s re­cent­ly-ap­point­ed chair Mala Bali­raj, who was al­so in­ter­viewed, echoed that a lot of in­vest­ments have been tak­ing place.

“What we want to fo­cus on is re­al­ly look­ing at in­vest­ment, not just in the in­fra­struc­ture and the as­sets, but peo­ple, skills. You know, de­car­bon­i­sa­tion is a con­ver­sa­tion that’s par­al­lel to in­vest­ing in en­er­gy in Trinidad. So def­i­nite­ly on point for us at that point,” said Bali­raj.

Shar­ing some in­sights on what more is ex­pect­ed at the con­fer­ence, she said, ‘This con­fer­ence re­al­ly, in my mind, al­lows us to cre­ate a space for the sec­tor. We have the pres­ence of not just the op­er­a­tors, but all of the mem­ber com­pa­nies; con­tract­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions, key stake­hold­ers, and for us it’s re­al­ly a time to net­work, have dis­cus­sions, chal­lenge each oth­er, and re­al­ly be able to push for­ward in the in­dus­try.”

A sta­ple of the con­fer­ence is its trade show, with about 100 plus ex­hibitors show­cas­ing their ser­vices and goods.

Bali­raj who de­scribed this as a “big deal” said not on­ly do peo­ple look for­ward to it, but it is al­so an op­por­tu­ni­ty for new tech­nol­o­gy and new ser­vices to be put for­ward in the en­er­gy sec­tor.