NGC
makes a $9m commitment to UTT
By Roxanne Stapleton
Trinidad Express
Port
Spain
Petroleumworldtt.com
11 19 06
A
$9 million commitment was made by the National Gas
Company (NGC) to the Natural Gas Institute of the
Americas of the University of Trinidad and Tobago
(UTT).
The
first tranche totaling $3 million was handed to
UTT's chairman, Prof Ken Julien.
Speaking
at the ceremony which was held at the Hilton, Port
of Spain NGC president Frank Look Kin stressed that
the contribution was critical for the training of
human resources.
"We
recognise that given the importance of the energy
sector, the natural gas component in particular,
to the economic well-being of this country, it is
critical that there is an institute which will provide
for the development of human resources, the better
understanding of the industry by the wider population
and the conduct of research to develop solutions
for the future of this industry," Look Kin
stressed.
He
described the opportunity to support the Natural
Gas Institute as one NGC readily accepted, since
objectives for optimising this country's hydrocarbon
resources are complimentary to its own.
"We
believe this Institute has tremendous potential
to stimulate learning through research in existing
and untapped areas and to develop energy technology
and know-how that will strengthen our country's
ability to participate substantially in upstream,
midstream and more so in the downstream.
"Our
country has benefitted from the use of imported
technology, but for sustainability of the industry
we have to adapt, modify, innovate and develop new
technologies and processes to succeed - this is
where the Institute will fulfill that long-standing
gap in our development of the energy sector,"
Look Kin noted.
The
Institute's reach he said, will not be limited to
the local industry, but will certainly impact regionally
and in the global gas industry, where this country
is a leading exporter of ammonia, methanol and LNG.
UTT
chairman, Prof Ken Julien who just returned from
an extensive trip to China, was the evening's feature
speaker.
Revealing
that the trip was rather fruitful, Julien said that
technologies developed in China will be applied
to the development of the "smaller of our aluminum
smelters".
"I've
returned from a very tiring and extensive trip to
China and when I was there I made a point of visiting
the University (North Eastern University of China)
that had developed and sold the technology that
we are going to be using in the smaller of our aluminum
smelters."
He
said that university was given the mandate by the
Chinese Government to develop and introduce the
technology throughout its entire system, with a
view to selling and exporting its packaged findings.
"This
institution was given the mandate to focus on non-ferrous
metals and they developed technologies around alumina,
magnesium and so on.
"They
were given the funding and resources, saying we
need that technology for our own uses and we also
need it to export eventually - incidentally Trinidad
and Tobago will be the very first introducing that
technology, outside of China," Julien noted.
The
professor lamented that even with the wealth of
human resource expertise developed in this country
over numerous years, we've not developed our own
technologies.
With
Government's intensified thrust in the education
sector he surmised, "we've come to terms with
the questions - how do we accelerate, modify and
develop our own technologies which offer sustainability."
Trinidad
Express
Wednesday, November 15th 2006
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