Enill: Energy sector can sustain jobs
PORT SPAIN
Trinidad & Tobago Newsday
Petroleumworldtt.com
03 17 09
TT
ENERGY Minister Conrad Enill yesterday said despite a slowdown in the local energy-based sector there was enough industrial activity to keep workers employed, especially to construct the Alutrint aluminium smelter and a power station.
He said while there is limited activity in some areas, there is going to be significant activity in others such as a new US$800 million (TT$5 billion) power plant and the Alutrint aluminium smelter, where the first phase is worth TT$1.2 billion.
“So even as we speak now, while there is contracting activity in some parts of the energy-sector, there is also going to be new activity taking place in other areas,” he said yesterday at the post- Cabinet news conference, Prime Minister's Diplomatic Centre, St Ann's.
On balance, therefore, we think that there would be a demand for jobs in that particular area, and they should be able to transfer between one and the other.”
Enill earlier explained the energy/industrial slowdown.
He said most energy exploration contracts signed this year in TT have been temporarily shelved, with no one drilling and the Government seeking new fiscal terms, although he was optimistic that within three to six months exploration would occur with falling costs of industrial investment.
Saying some energy projects have been deferred by their inability to get financing in this global slowdown, he said the Government would help some which need immediate and heavy up-front funding, with an option for private partners to re-engage in the project later.
“The cost -structures of the sector need to change but in order for that to occur some contracts have to be terminated. What happens is that as the contract is terminated we are going to have a lull, and then it's going to come back on.”
He saw the Petrotrin farm-out programme as a promising source of new economic activity.
 |
|
Story by Sean Douglas from Trinidad & Tobago Newsday
Trinidad & Tobago Newsday
March 13 2009
Copyright© 2008
respective author or news agency. All rights
reserved.
We welcome the use of Petroleumworld™ stories
by anyone provided it mentions Petroleumworld.com
as the source. Other stories you have to get authorization
by its authors.
