Apr 2017 Financial News

Positive update on gas-to-chemicals facility

Apr 19, 2017

ENGINEERS intend using the dry season to advance construction of the billion-dollar Caribbean Gas Chemical Ltd facility at La Brea, the National Gas Company — one of the partners in the project — has said.

NGC group chairman Gerry Brooks, NGC president Mark Loquan and vice president, Finance, Narinejit Pariag met with senior representatives of Mitsubishi Gas Holdings, Massy Holdings Ltd and Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) to discuss the proposed natural gas to petrochemicals complex at Union Industrial Estate on April 11. Also present were president and CEO of the Massy Group Gervase Warner and Eugene Tiah, chairman of Energy and Industrial Gases Business Unit, the NGC said in a statement yesterday.

Discussions centred around several matters including the progress of the plant. Mitsubishi officials and Brooks assured the representatives of JBIC that CGCL had made “excellent progress” to date.

Mitsubishi engineers also intend using the dry season to advance construction to ensure critical deadlines are met, the NGC stated.

CGCL’s role in Trinidad is integral given that it currently employs approximately 500 people, many of whom are drawn from the community of La Brea.

Additional employees will be recruited over the next phase of the project, the NGC statement said.

Improvement to gas supply

Brooks also updated JBIC on a number of initiatives to improve the short to medium term gas supply, including Trinidad Region Onshore Compression project (TROC) in the secodn quarter of this year, and the Juniper project scheduled for the third quarter.

Citing the recent successful negotiations for gas supply with bpTT and the Angelin project, Brooks underscored the future potential of other initiatives such as gas from the Dragon field, currently progressing apace with PDVSA and Shell; exploration of over 150 small and marginal fields; future possibilities of supply from the Rio Caribe and Soldado fields and unconventional sources that would provide resolution in the medium to long term, the NGC said.

Nakaba Aoyagi, director and project executive advisor, CGCL, the JBIC contingent “had a positive impression on NGC’s future gas supply plan” and were reassured that NGC and the government were committed to resolving the supply/demand balance by greater coordination and collaboration with the players in the value chain.

Caribbean Gas Chemical Ltd (CGCL) is a joint venture consortium comprising NGC, Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Company Inc, Mitsubishi Corporation and local conglomerate Massy Holdings Ltd.

JBIC is the main lender for the billion-dollar CGCL project.

Source:
Trinidad Express
Tuesday April 18, 2017, 10:51 pm AST

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/20170418/business/positive-update-on-gas-to-chemicals-facility