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Speaker:The Honourable Basdeo Panday, Prime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago
Date: May 31, 2000
Occasion: Address at the 5th Latin American Methanol Conference at the Trinidad Hilton Hotel.
My Dear Friends:
I am happy that you have given Trinidad and Tobago the opportunity to be your host for this 5th Latin American Methanol Conference.
You could not have chosen more wisely.
The Government is actively putting in place a platform for sustainability in methanol, and in our entire energy sector.
We recognize that any extractive industry, if optimized, faces a limited life-span in the face of diminishing resources.
However, through efficient management and involvement in the total energy value-chain, the Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago plans to make the most of our energy industry for the longest period possible.
My friends, it is a basic and guiding principle of my Administration that the energy resources of Trinidad and Tobago, must be managed to the benefit of the people of Trinidad and Tobago.
Over the last four years, our energy resources have fuelled unprecedented and unparalleled growth in infrastructure, in services, in benefits and in opportunities for the people of Trinidad and Tobago.
In the past four years, this country�s proven reserves of natural gas have grown considerably.
We have attracted the world�s major oil companies as participants in the development of our oil and gas industry.
These companies have provided us with technology, capital and access to markets.
In the pre-1990 period we had only one methanol plant.
By 1994, we had two plants.
Today, we have five Methanol plants and a stream of offers to build more methanol plants.
Through its purchase of the Saturn plant, we have attracted Methanex, a major Methanol company.
Methanex is the industry giant.
It is the largest methanol producer in the world and controls forty percent of the global market.
I take this opportunity to welcome Methanex and to send the message to other global players that Trinidad and Tobago is where the action is in methanol and in other products derived from natural gas.
Atlantic LNG, BP-Amoco, British Gas, Enron, Shell and all the other major global energy companies operating in Trinidad and Tobago will no doubt endorse this.
Overall, we have attracted the equivalent of US$6 billion in foreign investment in our few years in office.
Investor confidence in our economy, already high, has been boosted by the improvement in Trinidad and Tobago�s international credit rating and by sustained and impressive growth in our economy.
Even when oil prices were at their lowest our economy continued to grow.
Energy insiders all over the world are talking about the "Trinidad and Tobago Model" in the management of energy resources.
My dear Friends:
We have some crucial benchmarks that I want to share with you.
The energy sector now employs 19,000 people directly, with thousands more in construction, exploration and service companies.
Add to that, say, 5,000 induced jobs.
We have stabilised crude oil production and generated greater revenue to the country.
We have, at the same time, increased natural gas production and utilization.
Atlantic LNG alone will contribute an aggregate US$6 billion to the national economy, or an annual total of $1.6 billion Trinidad and Tobago dollars.
This capital inflow translates into more jobs, improved infrastructure, better living conditions, improved and expanded health facilities.
We have upgraded the performance of the state-owned refinery and made it profitable.
All the companies within our Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries have performed better during the past 5 years.
We have given those companies greater autonomy, providing the policy framework within which they operate, but allowing them flexibility and genuine authority to grow their businesses.
We have vastly improved the decision-making process, especially in terms of foreign investment.
There is a much faster turn-around time for approvals.
We have made the process transparent.
Though we stretch forth a welcoming hand of friendship to investors, it is never with an upturned palm.
In terms of sustainability, we are already putting in place the mechanisms for ensuring that we use the energy wealth of the present to create a future that is not energy-dependent.
We are in the process of harmonizing the education syllabus with the real needs of the country.
We will no longer be producing students who have no training for the world of work, and no place in it.
Within the energy sector, we have a National Energy Skills Centre that�s managed and supported by the major companies in the sector, and which will soon become self-supporting.
This organization, under the Presidency of the Minister of Energy, is engaged in upgrading the skills and competencies of our young people and equipping them for the present and future requirements of the energy sector.
At the same time, the NESC is taking the mass of the population into the information age, through computer literacy programmes.
Over the past three years, the NESC has trained and produced more than 1,100 graduates from its skills training programs, preparing them for highly skilled, well-paid jobs in the energy sector.
In addition, approximately 560 professionals from the energy industry have participated in specialized courses and seminars for continuous skills enhancement upgrading, 10,000 persons graduated from the NESC�s National Computer Literacy programme.
This year, the NESC will produce 900 graduates of the skills training programmes, 800 participants in continuous professional upgrading courses, and 20,000 persons in Computer Literacy.
Under the National Training Agency, we have created an Energy Industry Training Organisation to rationalise, coordinate and enhance training for the energy sector, wherever possible.
We will also be taking technical training to the highest level through the establishment of the Trinidad and Tobago Institute of Technology.
This new institution of higher learning will be operational by January next year, 2001.
The Institute will represent the ultimate in technical training and will provide a stream of highly trained personnel to manage our growing industrial sector.
The difference between existing tertiary institutions and the Institute of Technology is that the Institute will be producing ready-to-work, job-ready graduates, persons competent in their areas of specialization.
The curricula will be industry-driven, the faculty will be industry-experienced, the laboratories and training facilities will be cutting-edge, state of the art, and the scheduling will be flexible to accommodate working professionals and technicians.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Next Monday, the Reema Corporation will sign design construction contracts with Parson Coporation for the establishment of the world�s first commercial "Gas-To-Liquid Plant".
This will be established on a 150 acre site on Trinidad�s western seaboard, and will convert 100 million cubic feet of natural gas per day into sulphur-free and aromatics-free Diesel, Jet Fuel, Napatha and other high quality environmentally friendly, high quality petroleum products.
We see the need for providing a regulatory framework that will ensure the success of our local procurement, sales, manufacturing, construction and production companies.
By ensuring that foreign companies like Atlantic LNG use more local goods and services in the engineering, procurement and construction of their plants, more than $1 Billion will be spent locally.
This will help to expand local the business sector and will provide more jobs in the service and construction industries.
We have already invested considerably in the Methanol industry, providing an array of benefits, incentives and tax holidays.
Methanol now takes about nineteen percent of our national gas supply.
We want to make sure that methanol continues to be part of our total mix or slate of downstream petrochemicals.
Right now, your industry is going through some tough times.
Prices are down and are expected to remain depressed in the short-term.
Also, the MTBE problem in the State of California will inevitably affect the entire North American market for methanol.
However, there are new prospects for the use of methanol in fuel cells, and further downstream into olefins or polyethylene.
My Government is fully prepared to assist in the transition to these new applications, and will actively support the research and development efforts of companies interested in diversifying into the new areas.
We are in the developmental phase of an Ethylene Complex in Trinidad and Tobago that will capable of serving the needs of the Association of Caribbean States.
We are hoping that Venezuela, for instance, will work with us in the development of two additional LNG trains, making five in all.
Obviously, the conversion of methanol into olefins can be an additional area of cooperation.
However, sustainability begins at home. We have to make sure that there is a commonality of interests among the government, the National Gas Company, and gas producers to ensure the survival and growth of the methanol industry in this country.
There must be an alignment in prices within the industry if it is to become sustainable.
You will agree that Trinidad and Tobago has got to be doing something right to attract the levels of investment that we have attracted in the energy sector.
Your conference will no doubt, look at our model for managing the sector.
I want you to support our policy of zero tolerance for environmental damage by the energy sector.
We have to make the energy sector and the methanol business less hardardous to the environment.
We have to minimize the harmful consequences of the hydrocarbon industry while maximizing its benefits.
This is our challenge for the future.
I wish to recognize the Chairman of the Board of Methanol Holdings, Mr. Lawrence Duprey, and the other national producers who have put together this extremely timely and valuable Conference.
Mr. Duprey provides us the perfect recipe for long-term success.
He uses the synergies of investment in various sectors to generate wealth, and to create employment and sustainable growth.
Through Mr. Duprey�s initiative, the first entirely private sector venture in the local energy sector, Caribbean Methanol Company (CMC), a joint venture between CL Financial and Ferrostaal AG, was created in 1994.
CMC was truly a milestone project.
Later, when the government decided to divest its shares of TTMC in 1997, CL Financial saw it as an opportunity to broaden its base in the methanol industry, and became the largest shareholders of TTMC.
CL Financial and Ferrostaal AG further demonstrated their confidence in the local methanol industry with the formation of the M-IV company which commissioned its plant in 1998.
Mr. Duprey�s involvement in the industry has allowed the Government of Trinidad and Tobago to occupy what I consider its rightful place in the energy sector and methanol business.
The Government remains regulators of the entire energy sector.
We regulate the use of resources in the best interest of the people of Trinidad and Tobago.
We facilitate foreign investment and encourage local private-sector involvement.
Let me now facilitate the working sessions of your conference and wish you well for the future of methanol, and take my leave of you.
May God bless every one of you.