It's used in cricket, theatre, career development, politics and many other fields.
Often, getting the timing right is a matter of luck.
In other situations, it is about having the skill and expertise!
In cricket, a batsman who fails to get his timing right runs the risk of losing his wicket cheaply.
In politics, Prime Minister Patrick Manning painfully learnt the consequences of bad timing when he called early elections in 1995.
In business poor timing often results in loss of market opportunity and future profitability.
When that business is the petroleum industry in Trinidad and Tobago the consequence of poor timing can be catastrophic.
More specifically, the costs of the long drawn-out process of putting a new fiscal regime in place for the industry may well outweigh the benefits to be derived therefrom.
This issue has a six-year history.
In making the case for a revision of the fiscal regime in the Budget speech of 2004-05, Manning noted that the last fiscal reform was in 1992.
In his 2006 Budget address, the Prime Minister recounted that "in July 2005, an amendment to the Finance Bill 2005 was enacted that included measures to reform the system of taxation of income from oil production. This and the reform of taxation regime for income from gas production are major initiatives which will increase significantly the revenue that the people of Trinidad and Tobago receive from their energy wealth".
Two years later, following the Ibis Deep exploration well and the lack of interest in competitive bid rounds for deepwater blocks, the Prime Minister said: "What is needed now is a fiscal regime of incentives to stimulate further drilling in Deep Marine area off the East Coast, marginal fields, heavy oil and farm in and farm out arrangements. We propose to introduce a new fiscal regime in fiscal 2008." (Budget speech 2007-08).
In October 2008, Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira in her maiden Budget speech repeated the mantra.
"A comprehensive review of the fiscal framework governing the sector is now underway and will be completed by the end of the year." (2008).
Minister Nunez-Tesheira returned to the house in September 2009 to advise the citizens and the industry that "the Government is in the process of discussing a new fiscal regime with stakeholders in the energy sector".
A fiscal regime for the petroleum sector requires the Government to strike a balance between its revenue maximisation objective and the companies' goal of profit maximisation.
This is a difficult task under any condition, and is perhaps even more complicated in the context of T&T's diverse and complex upstream energy sector.
However, when such a supposedly critical exercise is in its third year running, real questions must be asked about the efficiency of the process, guiding philosophy and relative costs and benefits, particularly in a rapidly changing world.
Recent press reports suggest that while Trinidad and Tobago has been "engaged in the process" major discoveries are being made in provinces across the globe.
The Financial Times of September 17 reports that more than ten billion barrels of oil equivalent have been discovered in the first six months of 2009.
Among these discoveries are BP in the Gulf of Mexico, Petrobras and BG Group in Brazil, Monday ENI and Repsol, offshore Nicaragua and Anadarko in offshore Sierra Leone.
In addition to these, Repsol has announced the discovery of what could be Venezuela's biggest natural gas field.
Three significant features of these events should be noted.
First is that they are all in the offshore environment, some in deep water.
Secondly, most have occurred under regimes that are considered to be conducive to exploration and foreign investment. (Venezuela may be the exception in this case).
Thirdly, three of the four major companies operating in Trinidad and Tobago are involved.
Perhaps the most significant lesson to be learnt from these developments is the Trinidad and Tobago is not in a world of its own.
The international firms that operate here are in competition for the investment dollar with other subsidiaries all over the world.
As an investment location, Trinidad and Tobago is in competition with new fertile areas.
The big spending deep pocket multinationals that we seek to attract have tough choices to make about the distribution of investments. Would BP put its marginal investment dollar for capital development in the Gulf of Mexico or in T&T?
Would Repsol find it more profitable to inject capital in its local TSP asset or in the promise of the Venezuelan find?
The longer Trinidad and Tobago takes to get the fiscal system right, the more difficult it becomes to win new investments.
In the meantime the country's bargaining strength is being eroded, the small operators on land are becoming extinct and new investments downstream are drying up.
These unintended consequences- collateral damage if you wish- need to be factored into the equation.
