Trinidad Energy Conference 2025

Melanie Chen and Eugene Tiah both attended the Guyana Energy Conference this February.

The theme of the conference was, Investing for the Future. The focus was on Trinidad and Tobago. Both T&T Government speakers, the Prime Minister and Minister of Energy and Energy Industries, and industry speakers provided upbeat presentations on what is being done to address the current gas production shortages relative to processing capacity. It was clear that the shortage will continue to persist until 2027 when the Manatee cross border gas production comes online.

There was a strong focus on progress on upstream activity in the award of blocks for exploration and production out of bid rounds, development activity of operators particularly on the cross-border gas with Venezuela, the Manatee and Mankin fields. Emphasis was placed on what is being done to accelerate activity and ensure Manatee first gas in 2027. There were updates on the deepwater Calypso gas field including progress on the appraisal process that feeds into a final investment decision. That has a longer time line and likely will not reach a final investment decision until late in 2026.

There was an interesting panel discussion on “flared gas” in Venezuela which is currently between 1.5 to 2 BSCFD. This can been of tremendously value for the region if it can be harnessed as a transition fuel and accessible to the energy short Caribbean countries in the form of LNG. The technical, commercial, and geopolitical challenges associated with harnessing this flared gas were discussed.

There was an interesting wind energy workshop. CCCREE provided an update on its progress to advance a demonstration offshore project(50-100MW) in the Caribbean to prove the viability and encourage further commercial development. Countries short listed for the selection of the location of the demonstration project include, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Jamaica, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago. The scope of this phase of the project also includes framing of an offshore development zone for the Caribbean and the harmonization of offshore regulations. The aspiration is to unlock 500 – 2000 MW of offshore wind generation potential in the region. The workshop also included a presentation from a leading UK expert on the criticality of asset integrity considerations in the viability of offshore wind projects.