Will Trinidad break oil production slump in the near term?

At The Energy Chamber of Trinidad and Tobago's annual event this month, energy minister Franklin Khan said the outlook for oil output in the country was "very promising."

Khan based his forecast in part on BHP's recent declaration of commerciality for the Ruby field, where preliminary estimates envision production of up to 10,000b/d, as well as Heritage Petroleum's (HPCL) development of the South West Soldado field.

The minister also pointed to Trinity Exploration and Production's TGAL field, where output is due onstream by next year.

Khan added that oil output this year would stabilize and increase, and that production stands at 66,000b/d oil and 3.6Bf3/d gas.

Data in the ministry's just released bulletin for full year 2018 shows that crude and condensate output in December averaged 56,549b/d.

Much of the blame for the drastic fall in the Caribbean nation's oil output has been placed on former state oil company Petrotrin, "as much needed capital was diverted to other parts of the business, which in several instances offered little or no financial returns," Prime Minister Keith Rowley said at the event.

HPCL took over Petrotrin's upstream assets as part of the NOC's restructuring.

For his part, chamber chair Eugene Tiah reiterated calls for the government to address the structure of the supplemental petroleum tax, "which severely inhibits competitiveness of the Trinidad oil sector," according to the industry representative.

Khan, meanwhile, pinned hopes on pledged spend by companies of up to US$10bn in the upstream sector in the coming years, with 14 exploration and 66 development wells due to be spudded in 2019.

In 2018, 42 wells were started and 39 were completed compared with 76 and 54 the year before, according to the ministry's bulletin.

The number of rig days and depth drilled last year totaled 1,654 and 361,488ft, versus 1,824 and 398,282ft in 2017.

SURVEY

In a related note, the energy chamber reported that 59% of companies polled in its latest energy services sector survey indicated that the value of their business fell in the third quarter, while 55% said the volume of business was down.

"While there are indications in the upstream sector that the volume of work is set to increase, this is not reflected in the views of the service companies polled. One reason could be the news of the closure of the Petrotrin refinery," said the chamber.