petroleumworld

Trinidad & Tobago Energy Minister Conrad Enill is hoping that Venezuela might be persuaded to send some of the natural gas from its Loran marine acreage in the Gulf of Paria to this country for commercialisation in a new LNG plant.

Enill expressed this hope in an interview in last month’s edition of Energy Caribbean magazine.

The Loran field is on the opposite side of the TT-Venezuela maritime border in the Gulf of Paria.

This field is directly opposite the Manatee field on the TT side of the border.

TT and Venezuela have developed a framework agreement to unify cross border natural gas reserves.

The reservoir technical working group, which comprises TT and Venezuelan representatives, estimated that the Loran field has 73 percent of 7.3 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas while the remaining 27 percent (two tcf) of this gas is located in the Manatee field.

The Loran field is operated by US energy company Chevron in a 60 to 40 percent partnership with Venezuelan state oil company PdVSA which bought out Conoco Phillips share in the field last October.

Chevron is also operating the Manatee field in a 50 percent joint venture with BG Trinidad and Tobago.

Venezuelan energy minister Rafael Ramirez has constantly signalled that Venezuela is very reluctant to divert any of the share of its cross-border gas in Loran-Manatee to be commercialised anywhere else but in Venezuela. However Enill believes that two factors could change Venezuela’s position on this issue.

The first of these is the cost of greenfield LNG trains which could reach in the vicinity of US$6.41 billion. The second is the changed gas picture in Venezuela following the discovery by Spanish company Repsol YPF and Italian company ENI SPA of between 5.6 and 7.8 tcf of gas in the Perla One exploration well in the Cardon Four block in the Gulf of Venezuela. PdVSA will farm in to 35 percent of the discovery once the decision is made to develop it. This would effectively leave Reposl and ENI SPA I with 32.5 percent each of the gas from the discovery.

Enill believes this development has reduced Venezuela’s dependance on natural gas from Plataforma Deltana, of which the Loran field is a part, in order to fulfill its LNG ambitions.

“The new discovery Repsol YPF and ENI gives Venezuela some more choices in terms of gas, and may cause it to take a different view of cross-border gas,” Enill stated.

The minister also expressed the view that a geopolitical factor could result in some Venezuelan gas from Plataforma Deltana being commercialised in TT. Enill hinted that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez might be willing to strengthen ties between TT and Venezuela through a tight alliance on cross-border gas.

“At the end of the day, the technocrats will give us a technical consideration and then politicians will have to decide what they are prepared to do. I am waiting to hear what the technocrats tell me (in relation to the unitisation agreement) and then I will go to the politicians and see what position they may want to take,” Enill said.

TT's Enill hopes for Venezuelan gas