By Rory Rostant Thursday, September 3 2009

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Gas review: Energy Minister Conrad Enill, right, accepts a copy of a report on the country's gas reserves from Herman Acuna, managing senior vice pres...

In just one year, the amount of gas available for commercial use in this country has fallen, according to Ryder Scott in its 2008 gas audit and warned the challenge now was to replace the gas already used.

But Energy Minister Conrad Enill dismissed concerns that the fall in proven reserves, 17 trillion cubic feet (tcf) in 2007 to 15.4 tcf in 2008, a drop of about 1.6 trillion cubic feet (tcf), was going to be a disincentive for investors and said Government was not worried about the reduction.

Asked if companies are interested in exploration now, Enill said he believed there are still firms with deep pockets and noted that Ryder Scott’s audit does not include deep water blocks.

Government, he said, was now tweaking its petroleum fiscal regime to help ramp up exploration and will do a road show for its 2009-2010 bid round to encourage investors to pick up the blocks. The deep water round bid will be launched at the end of the second fiscal quarter in 2010, Enill said.

On how all this was going to impact on Monday’s budget, Enill said some issues will be addressed but did not elaborate. Enill said however that while revenues are going to be affected in the short term given the drop in gas prices, Government’s plan for the energy sector was long term.

Enill’s comments came following the presentation of the report by Ryder Scott into Trinidad and Tobago’s gas reserves by Herman Acuna, managing senior vice president at Ryder Scott International, at the Hyatt Regency in Port-of-Spain yesterday.

According to the Ryder Scott figures, this country’s proved gas reserves or gas for commercial use have been declining from 2001 when reserves stood at 20.3 tcf to 18. 8 tcf in 2004; 16.9 in 2007 and now in 2008 to 15.4 tcf.

In his presentation, Acuna noted that proved gas reserves stood at 15.374 tcf, probable at 8.451 tcf and possible at 6.286 tcf, a total of about 29.7 tcf. Enill told reporters that the volume of gas produced during 2008 was 1.5 tcf at an average rate of 4.1 billion cubic feet (bcf), almost the exact amount in the proved reserves.

BP, the major gas player in Trinidad and Tobago, yesterday said it could not comment until it had seen the report. Acuna said not only was there pressure to continue exploration but a “tremendous challenge to replace the gas used.” In his view, exploration should be encouraged to increase reserves.

Energy analyst Anthony Paul said exploration was the biggest hurdle facing Government right now with companies holding back on investments across the globe. “What Government needs to do was fine tune its fiscal and taxation regime in line with current realities,” he said.

When asked how long proved gas reserves were going to last, Acuna said this depended on existing volumes and how fast this was being utilised and exploration activity.

Enill said in 2007 when the 2006 gas audit figures were presented, there was some concern that there was a noticeable reduction in the proved gas reserves but noted that in 2008 these reserves had since been replaced by 100 percent.

Trinidad and Tobago, he said, has large volumes of uncommitted gas because projects which were supposed to come on stream never materialised and emphasised that most of the major energy companies have expressed a high level of confidence in the ability of their existing gas reserves to meet their current demand.

Enill assured that this country over the long term will have a supply of natural gas to meet not only its domestic needs but to service its exports.