Oct 2016 Financial News

Loquan takes NGC's reins...Ready for change

Oct 20, 2016

After seven years working for the Norwegian fertilizer giant Yara in Angola and Australia, Mark Loquan has come back home, not only to T&T but to the energy sector as president of the country’s most profitable indigenous company, state-owned National Gas Company (NGC) Ltd.

Loquan, who served as president of Yara Trinidad for six years, took hold of the reins at NGC effective September 1, signalling that no challenge is too big to handle, not even the challenges that the local energy sector now faces.

NGC Chairman Gerry Brooks along with Loquan spoke to Business Guardian on September 21, at NGC’s booth, Queens Park Oval, Port-of-Spain to discuss the changes to be made in the operations of the company.

Loquan brings to NGC his more than three decades of experience in the petrochemical industry both internationally and locally. And takes on the position at time when the revenues to the government from the energy sector have been slashed as a result of plummeting prices of oil and natural gas as well as a sharp reduction in production of all of T&T’s energy exports.

NGC has close to 600 employees and can boast of no labour unrest.

In the last five years, NGC heated up the headlines with allegations that it was used as the government’s piggybank and of questionable spending at the Beetham Water Treatment plant, raising questions of accountability and transparency. But Loquan said the policies of ethics and a code of conduct need to be rolled out within the group and that a culture of accountability and transparency need to be put in place.

While a great deal is expected, both of NGC and of Loquan when it comes to his leadership skills, he said it requires all stakeholders to partner to weather the economic downturn and not necessarily one person or one company.

“NGC certainly in its role views the challenges as quite demanding but we cannot continue to place NGC and the energy framework within the framework of T&T only-for us to create value,” said Loquan.

That value is not only created by renewing contracts with companies along T&T’s natural gas value chain, it also involves deepening linkages with Venezuela, Ghana as well as the technical solutions the company is looking at to get better storage in the system.

The 52-year-old, who is well known as a composer of Panorama tunes, said he has “big shoes to fill” but at the end of the day he said, “It will require a lot of work with the entire sector.”

His experience before NGC was mainly within the private sector locally and internationally and now that he is officially employed in the public sector, Loquan said: “We will take some adjustment because in the State sector there are a lot more stakeholders. There are a lot of functional committees with which I would have to work: on boards, the Ministry and these kinds of stakeholders that I have to deal with that I didn’t really, or would not have that kind of experience in previous roles. But I am confident that we can make it work.”

Asked what he brought to the table for NGC, Loquan said in a time of change where there is a lot of turbulence in the energy sector it is important to have “stable leadership,” referring to his experience in the energy sector for more than 30 years, and the international experience he gathered in sub Saharan Africa. That experience would have involved dealing with gas issues, with governments and upstream and downstream companies as well as service sector companies.

Update on Ghana and Venezuela

Giving an update on Ghana, Brooks said: “NGC has signed an MoU with the Bulk Oil Storage Transportation Company.

We are exploring a pipeline opportunity…we see Ghana as the gateway to West Africa. We see East Africa and Tanzania and Mozambique as subsequent point of entry as we expand our capability in our outreach to Africa.”

From engineering, to financials, to economics needs to be looked at and that process should be completed soon and then the respective boards within the group would start work.

Asked whether NGC has the resources and competences to back the plans it has, Brooks said the group employs 1,100 people, has 41 years of experience and comprises 22 companies. There are plans to partner with companies it has worked with.

“From an HR perspective we start with the business of respect for the individual and build out our HR capacity then align the HR capacity to the strategic plans and initiatives that we have.”

On the issue of doing business with Venezuela, Brooks said that was a government-led effort. The interview was conducted before the presentation of the 2017 budget so Brooks could not give details. Finance Minister Colm Imbert had said in the budget that T&T intends on doing business with Venezuela to obtain gas from the Dragon field. Brooks said NGC is a “significant” part of the team that is looking at Venezuela and that “good progress is being made.”

Acquistions

While not disclosing too much about its growth strategy, Brooks said NGC has always had a judicious mix of growth through acquisitions as well as organic growth and does plan to make acquisitions in the future.

“We have a strong balance sheet of $44 billion. That balance sheet in a period of relatively low multiples would allow NGC judiciously and carefully to look at acquisitions which have strategic benefit to us where the economics makes sense to allow us to build our organisation such that we can become a substantial global player,” said Brooks.

He said a team is looking at possible acquisitions in Ghana, Venezuela, Cuba, Africa and North America, adopting a very careful, considered and deliberate approach. He is not daunted by the economic downturn the country has suffered.

Brooks confirmed that the gas masterplan was shared with the upstream, downstream and mid-stream sectors in a very deliberate way.

“Comments were invited, discussions were held and the committee is currently assembling those points into a final position. There has been a very transparent and professional discussion. NGC had a chance to provide comments and input as has every participant.”

Overall, Brooks said what NGC is doing, is building on its more than four decades old legacy as well as building on its international reputation.

Asked whether the manufacturing sector is well poised to be the main revenue earner for the country, just like the energy sector was previously, Brooks said: “The manufacturing sector is responsible for nine per cent of GDP and it creates more jobs per mmbtu of gas. In the manufacturing sector, we have good capital equipment, but I think we have slack capacity. However, we have learnt how to grow markets and the key would be to grow outside of the Caribbean.

“It is going to be awhile before the manufacturing sector is going to replace the energy sector but certainly there is room for the manufacturing sector from a downstream energy standpoint to get involved (in the energy sector).”

 

Source:
NADALEEN SINGH
nadaleen.singh@guardian.co.tt
Business Guardian, BG5
Thursday October 20, 2016