PM’s energy conference snub raises concerns for energy sector

PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

pe­ter.christo­[email protected]

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s de­ci­sion to de­cline an in­vi­ta­tion to at­tend next week’s En­er­gy Con­fer­ence has drawn mixed re­ac­tions from for­mer min­is­ters and sen­a­tors.

For­mer prime min­is­ter and en­er­gy min­is­ter, Stu­art Young, said the stance tak­en by the Prime Min­is­ter was “hypocrisy at its best” as he said the Gov­ern­ment would still have to ne­go­ti­ate with many of the En­er­gy Cham­ber mem­bers con­cern­ing mat­ters which would im­pact the en­er­gy sec­tor.

“Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is re­ly­ing com­plete­ly on the multi­na­tion­al oil and gas com­pa­nies to ne­go­ti­ate and at­tempt to ob­tain cross-bor­der gas, for ex­am­ple, Drag­on. So whilst she tries to fool the pop­u­la­tion on one hand, the truth is she is to­tal­ly re­liant on them on the oth­er.”

He added, “Fur­ther­more, by leav­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions up to the same multi­na­tion­al oil and gas com­pa­nies, this Gov­ern­ment is sell­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go short and guar­an­tee­ing that we get low­er re­turns should they suc­ceed.”

On Mon­day, the Prime Min­is­ter launched a scathing at­tack on the En­er­gy Cham­ber of Trinidad and To­ba­go, ac­cus­ing it of serv­ing the in­ter­ests of for­eign multi­na­tion­als and nar­row spe­cial in­ter­ests while un­der­min­ing lo­cal con­trac­tors and State-owned en­er­gy com­pa­nies.

How­ev­er, for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan agreed with the Prime Min­is­ter’s stance re­gard­ing state spon­sor­ship of the event.

“I did stop the Min­istry of En­er­gy from fund­ing the En­er­gy Con­fer­ence. In my hum­ble view, the cham­ber is made up of many mem­bers. And they have mem­ber­ship fees...they de­rive in­come,” said Seep­er­sad-Bachan, who was en­er­gy min­is­ter un­der Per­sad-Bisses­sar in the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment from May 2010 to June 2011.

“The En­er­gy Cham­ber is de­riv­ing sig­nif­i­cant in­come from par­tic­i­pa­tion in these con­fer­ences. And they are al­so de­riv­ing sig­nif­i­cant in­come from all the dis­play booths par­tic­i­pat­ing in the ex­hi­bi­tion, from all the com­pa­nies that would take ex­hi­bi­tion booths. So, why is it that they need this kind of spon­sor­ship (from the state)?”

She said that while she ob­ject­ed to the min­istry’s spon­sor­ship of the event, she ex­plained she did not give any state en­ti­ty any in­struc­tion con­cern­ing sup­port of the event.

Seep­er­sad-Bachan was al­so among sev­er­al who raised con­cern about the En­er­gy Cham­ber’s ad­min­is­tra­tion of Safe To Work (STOW) fees, which she and oth­ers said proved a bar­ri­er to en­try for small lo­cal com­pa­nies with­in the en­er­gy sec­tor.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia be­fore yes­ter­day’s Sen­ate sit­ting, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Mar­lene Attzs said she had not seen the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ments, but urged cau­tion giv­en the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic re­liance on the en­er­gy sec­tor.

“We should tem­per the lan­guage so that we don’t in­ad­ver­tent­ly run in­vestors, so to speak, be­cause we still are, sep­a­rate and apart from the con­ver­sa­tions around Drag­on, and we know that those con­ver­sa­tions are in a flux, sep­a­rate and apart from those con­ver­sa­tions, we’re hav­ing oth­er con­ver­sa­tions around oth­er fields in the en­er­gy sec­tor, and we do need sup­port from both lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al in­vestors to help us re­alise some of those re­turns.”

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi al­so queried the stance tak­en by the Prime Min­is­ter.

“Our econ­o­my, our stan­dard of liv­ing, de­pends up­on the oil and gas sec­tor. The En­er­gy Cham­ber in­cludes the part­ners in the en­er­gy up­stream and down­stream, hor­i­zon­tal and ver­ti­cal re­la­tion­ships. Who’s there? bp. Who’s there? Shell. Who’s there? The en­er­gy play­ers in Trinidad and To­ba­go. How does Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar pur­port to cel­e­brate Drag­on and its OFAC li­cence when your part­ner is Shell? Cocuina – part­ner is Shell. Man­akin – part­ner is Shell. Exxon in the ul­tra-deep. Is the ul­tra-deep in part­ner­ship with the En­er­gy Cham­ber?” said Al-Rawi.

He said, “So say­ing to the En­er­gy Cham­ber, in­clud­ing your in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners, that they are greedy and that they are oth­er­wise, again asks me the same ques­tion as to whether this ver­sion of Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar is the ver­sion that Trinidad and To­ba­go re­al­ly de­serves or even wants. They are dan­ger­ous state­ments at a time when in­vestor par­tic­i­pa­tion and con­fi­dence with who you have here, for­get for­eign in­vest­ment com­ing from else­where, Shell is the largest play­er along­side bp, and they are mem­bers that par­tic­i­pate in the En­er­gy Cham­ber.”

Al-Rawi al­so said it was an in­ter­est­ing stance to take with Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo, cur­rent­ly abroad ne­go­ti­at­ing a $1 bil­lion bond for the coun­try.