Manning: No crime to have oil and gas
Port Spain
Petroleumworldtt.com
01 20 08
Trinidadians
should not behave as if it is a crime for this
country to have oil and gas, Prime Minister
Patrick Manning told members of the T&T Chamber
of Industry and Commerce yesterday.
He was addressing members of the Chamber at their
luncheon, the first official function at the Hyatt
Regency Trinidad, 1 Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain.
Manning
said the starting point of this country’s
development was the natural resources with which
it is endowed.
“And
if God, in His wisdom, gave us oil and gas, let
us not behave as though it is a crime
to have oil and gas, and as though to develop the
oil and gas that the Almighty God gave us, is to
do something that is wrong and something of which
we should be ashamed. We start with that.”
Manning said a population of 1.3 million cannot
sustain an energy industry in terms of a market.
“As Prof (Ken) Julien reminded me two days
ago, it took us two years to properly get T&T
back on the radar screen of the major energy corporations
around the world.
“We can’t
afford that kind of thing in the competitive
environment in which we are
now operating.
“If we have oil and gas, it is with oil
and gas that we that we start, and we can’t
apologise for doing that.
“That is what you have. You can’t
start with uranium, you don’t have that.
You can’t start with copper, you don’t
have that. You could only start with what you have,” Manning
said.
He
said government’s concept was very simple:
to maximise the value gained from developing oil
and gas while simultaneously looking to develop
alternatives that will diversify the economy.
Development and the environment
Manning
said government will not allow itself to be “derailed” by
the environmental lobby or any other group.
“If
we allow ourselves to be derailed particularly
by the environmental lobby or by some other group
that may not be well informed, we will make the
mistake of our lives. Today, you cannot build a
process plant in the US because the government
of the US allowed the environmental lobby to get
out of hand.”
He said government was moving toward sustainable
development and will pay due regard to environmental
considerations.
“That
is our responsibility. But what we will not allow
is our development programme that
has been so well conceived to be derailed on the
basis of emotion and uninformed comment or uninformed
political action.
“Therefore, if the experts say that on the
basis of health and environmental considerations,
there is no bar to the establishment of an aluminium
industry in T&T, the responsibility of the
government is to proceed and that we are doing.”
Story
by Sandra Chouti from The Trinidad Guardian
The
Trinidad Guardian
Wednesday 16th January, 2008
Copyright
©2007 Petroleumworld. All Rights Reserved.
