Trinidad's
LNG workers get $12m bonus
By Roxanne
Stapleton
The Trinidad Express
Port
Spain
Petroleumworld.com 02 05 06
Workers
at Atlantic LNG Train V, among them those who took strike action
in 2004, are to share in a $12 million bonus.
Even
with a ten-week workers strike which gripped the country back
then, the largest LNG train in the world was completed within
a schedule of 42 months, within budget and without loss of life,
during a combined total of 14.5 million work hours.
And
for that delivery feat, workers on the Train IV project shared
in a $12 million bonus, Atlantic LNG president, Rick Cape, revealed
yesterday at his company's celebration to mark its completion.
Train
IV will increase the company's production by 50 per cent, with
a resultant 15 million tonnes of LNG export capacity per annum.
In
his feature address, Prime Minister Patrick Manning described
Train IV's delivery as "a major achievement, arising out
of a sterling effort".
Manning
said that his Government has placed "priority" on
restoring balance in oil and gas production.
"As
it stands today oil production is about 150,000 barrels a day
and the oil equivalent of gas production with Atlantic LNG fully
on stream should be of the order of 650,000 barrels per day,
which means there's now a big imbalance as between oil and gas
production, a balance not in terms of oil figures -an imbalance
in terms of the revenues.
"From
the standpoint of the Minister of Finance, it is the revenue
base that is of more concern to us - and so at this time...
it is the priority of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago
to stimulate oil exploration activity, so that we can bring
into balance revenues of oil in relation to revenues from gas.
"Our
revenue projection suggests two more trains of LNG - one based
on Venezuelan gas and the other based on gas from Trinidad and
Tobago, Train X as it is called."
Of
the proposed fifth train, Manning said that his Government will
institute a policy which states if a party wants to access gas
for export, the entity must commit some of its reserves to domestic
gas utilisation .
He
said that "that policy is well on the way".
Pointing
to six main projects to the tune of US$7.3 billion along the
southern and central belts, including aluminum smelter plants,
Manning said a survey was done in La Brea to pinpoint the unemployed,
so they could be channeled into training programmes, with the
aim of becoming part of the skilled pool for hire.
In
addition to the 19,000 jobs created in construction for the
projects, 3,000 permanent jobs will be created with the upgrade
of the Pointe-a-Pierre Refinery and 2,000 jobs created during
the refinery's upgrade phase, he said.
