The Future of Energy: Ideas from youth
The Trinidad Guardian
Petroleumworldtt.com 03 30 08
The
future of the T&T energy sector includes
the export of skills through energy services; adjusting
fiscal terms to stimulate exploration; renewable
energy; selling energy services to Suriname, Guyana
and Barbados; cross-border co-operation with Venezuela
and energy efficiency. These are the views of four
university students who submitted the top four
essays/ power points in the T&T Petroleum Conference,
2008 (TTPC 2008) essay/ power point competition.
These students were awarded fully sponsored admission
to the TTPC 2008 and the related social events.
The
topic chosen for the essay competition was “Given
T&T’s depleting hydrocarbon reserves,
discuss what steps should be taken to ensure the
future for the energy sector beyond oil and gas.”
This
topic was in keeping with the theme of TTPC 2008: “The
Future of Energy?”
The
response to the essay competition from both universities
was excellent and the quality of submissions
received was generally high. The essays were rich
with ideas that sought to provide a vision for
the T&T energy sector beyond oil and gas.
The students with the top four essay/power points
were Troy Wilson (UTT), Zephrine Millard (UTT),
Edward Bahaw (UTT) and Lendyn Phillip (UWI). All
four students are enrolled in an energy-related
degree programme. The following are some of the
ideas that were put forward by these future leaders
of the energy sector.
1.
In his essay, Troy Wilson of the UTT noted that
there is no single solution that can replace
all the industries and products that petroleum
has been able to provide. He saw our energy sector’s
survival as dependent on the “level of creativity
and innovation we can provide using our human,
technological, managerial and natural resources
we already have or that we can access.”
Wilson
went on to add that our most readily available,
renewable and native resource is our local talent
and expertise in the oil and gas business. He contended
that after 100 years of commercial oil production,
T&T possessed highly specialised skills in
the energy sector, which can be sold to other countries.
These highly specialised skills include petroleum
project economics, asset management, production
sharing contract (PSC) negotiations, oil refinery
economics and natural gas chain development. These
skills can be sold to emerging oil and gas producers
like Suriname, Guyana and Barbados who can benefit
from our experience and expertise.
Wilson is the current chairman of the SPE student
chapter at the UTT.
2.
Lendyn Phillip of UWI saw securing the future
of the energy sector as a function of increasing
proven reserves. He recommended that this should
be done by either further exploration or by developing
technologies to increase recovery from existing
fields. Phillip pointed out that though current
estimates indicate that T&T is fast depleting
its existing reserves, it was likely that there
is much more hydrocarbons yet to be discovered
in the deep onshore, deep water and ultra-deep
acreages.
He
added that technologies could be developed and
applied to recover more oil from existing reservoirs.
He also noted the importance of Venezuela to the
future of the T&T energy sector. He said that
long after T&T’s reserves are depleted,
a downstream energy engineering industry and petrochemical
industry may be supported from the Venezuelan energy
industry.
3.
Edward Bahaw of the UTT held a view similar to
Phillip’s. He argued that in order to
ensure a future for the energy sector, greater
fiscal incentives should be offered for exploration.
Bahaw
based this conclusion on the fact that there
are large unexplored acreages within the country’s
oceanic territory. He cited the disappointing Deep
Atlantic Bid Round as an example of the need to
review the fiscal incentives offered to E&P
companies.
Bahaw
also saw local content as important to the future
of the energy sector of T&T. He saw
local content as allowing T&T to harness greater
value along the energy value chain over the medium
term. In the long term he saw local content as
allowing for the nurturing of new industries that
would sustain the T&T economy beyond oil and
gas with the ultimate aim being the development
of a globally competitive energy service industry
providing engineering services, geological services,
offshore platform construction, petroleum cargo
vessels, and drilling services.
Significantly,
Bahaw noted that T&T had already
in place large investments in natural gas infrastructure
and this made the country well suited for the processing
of natural gas. In this regard, he saw T&T
in the future utilising its natural gas processing
infrastructure to process natural gas from neighbouring
Venezuela.
4. Zephrine Millard of the UTT took the view that
achieving competitive advantage in the future would
rely on how we use our human and infrastructural
resources such as petrochemical plants and the
refinery.
Given
these resources, Millard saw the need to diversify
the T&T energy sector in three directions:
selling of our energy skills; the development of
energy efficient strategies and energy optimisation
techniques; and developing large scale pilot chemical
technologies which would allow the T&T energy
sector to sell sophisticated products.
In
terms of energy efficiency and how that relates
to reducing a country’s carbon footprint,
Millard cited the exampled of Abu Dhabi’s
Green City (Masdar City) which aims to have zero
carbon emissions and will be home to the world’s
largest hydrogen power plant.
The STCIC and the Geological Society of T&T
(GSTT) were proud to host these four students at
TTPC 2008. We also believe that their presence
at TTPC 2008 is the most apt reminder that the “The
Future of Energy” resides not only in reserves
of oil and gas or in T&T’s complex natural
gas infrastructure but in the people who are being
developed in the classrooms of our universities.
We encourage the students at UTT and UWI to continue
to think about the future of our energy sector
and to continue to articulate these ideas. The
STCIC and the GSTT take this opportunity to thank
all the students who took the time to participate
in this competition.
The four winning essays can be downloaded at www.stcic.org.
Story from The Trinidad Guardian
The
Trinidad Guardian
Thursday
20th March, 2008
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