Trinidad & Tobago, the Caribbean liquefied natural gas exporter from its plant at Point Fortin in Trinidad, has signed a new energy agreement with Royal Dutch Shell featuring an enhanced revenue package for the sale of LNG.
The agreement followed talks at Shell’s Dutch headquarters in The Hague involving Trinidad & Tobago Prime Minister Keith Rowley and Shell Chief Executive Ben van Beurden, as well as other officials and executives.
“The energy deal is the result of months of positive and relationship-building discussions between Shell and the Government,” said a statement from the PM’s office.
“The agreement reflects the mutual importance of the relationship and the value Shell has placed on Trinidad and Tobago,” it added, though no financial details were released.
The Anglo-Dutch company and Trinidad has also committed to continue their discussions surrounding the development of the energy sector.
The Caribbean nation’s Minister of Energy and Energy Industries Franklin Khan signed on behalf of the government while Derek Hudson, Vice President and Country Chairman of Shell Trinidad and Tobago signed on behalf of Shell.
Prime Minister Rowley also held talks with Shell executive Maarten Wetselaar who is the Integrated Gas and New Energies Director at Shell and is responsible for LNG.
Trinidad is one of the longest-standing LNG exporting nations and started its first Train in 1999. It quickly became the main supplier of LNG to the United States before the shale-gas boom enabled the US itself to join the exporter ranks.
Trinidad’s liquefaction plant, which has found new customers in South America, Europe and Asia, boosted its production last year by 14.2 percent to 11.63MT from its four Trains. The plant's main shareholders are Shell and BP of the UK.
In the past two years, the LNG plant has boosted its feed-gas resources with projects such as the Angelin development, the Juniper venture and the Trinidad Onshore Compression project.
Two other developments are planned. These are the Cassia Compression venture and the Matapal gas project for a discovery made in 2017. They are expected to come on stream in 2021 and 2022 respectively.
