Manning’s
palaces and gas reserves
THE EDITOR: It is amazing how little reaction
the recent announcement of the results of the Ryder
Scott audit of our gas reserves has provoked. Only
a couple of letters to the press (obviously by
thinking persons) and the CoP has now taken up
the issue after much prodding.
The Ryder Scott report confirms (yet again) the
parlous state we have allowed our reserves to decline
to, by excessive production, a matter frequently
reported by myself and others. This is nothing
new, it has been revealed in every reserves report
for the last six years, while we continued to merrily
add consumer industries, but now the decline has
commenced in earnest and appears rather more rapid
than formerly predicted. We might have thought
that exploration would convert probable to proven
reserves somewhat faster, but this has not happened,
so we must resign ourselves to the inevitable decline
in gas production, and with it our economy.
The
incredible part of all this is the complete state
of denial our Government, led by Mr Manning,
has been caught in. He still makes grandiose announcements
of expansion of the gas industries with Essar Steel,
the Alutrint smelter, Tobago becoming an “energy
hub” for the West Indies, Caribbean pipeline,
and numerous other projects that clearly can never
happen. How these projects pass their “due
diligence” test I cannot imagine, but note
there are no well-known international players in
the new bunch. We simply do not have the gas reserves
for any expansion at all, and are in serious deficit
for our existing obligations in Point Lisas. It
is noted that all categories of reserves declined
so that with the drop from 18.8 to 16.7 TCF in
proven reserves, there is little hope of fast enough
replacement from probable reserves since this category
has declined too.
Consider
also that this report is nearly two years obsolete.
The reserves report is effective January
1 of each year. It takes time to compute the numbers
in each oil/gas company so this report was done
presumably on calculations started in late 2005,
to be reported January 1, 2006. By now the number
is far worse. There will be no rescue from Venezuela’s
east coast (inadequate to remove deficit) “cross
border” fields since these will remain ensnarled
in red tape unless we are prepared to convert to
socialism to Mr Chavez’s liking.
Curiously
enough, there are adequate reserves on Venezuela’s north coast to make that Tobago “energy
hub” a reality, but I predict no progress
with such a project as long as we cherish our basic
freedoms in TT.
Meanwhile
we are subjected to finger-wagging lectures from
Mr Manning, on how he will initiate this or
that project and the national budget has become
a contest for who can dream up the most preposterous
projects and State give-aways. The effect on our
economy this round will be far worse, since we
have built a mountain of debt, justified by present
GDP levels. As the decline sets in I wonder how
we will regard all Mr Manning’s grandiose
towers downtown and around the country and his
elaborate palace in St Ann’s.
REG POTTER
Glencoe
Trinidad & Tobag
Newsday
Wednesday, August 22 2007
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