As ris­ing ten­sions in­volv­ing Iran push glob­al oil and gas prices high­er, for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young has de­fend­ed the At­lantic LNG re­struc­tur­ing, say­ing the coun­try is now po­si­tioned to ben­e­fit be­cause of de­ci­sions tak­en un­der the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) gov­ern­ment.

In a state­ment is­sued to­day, Young said the De­cem­ber 2023 re­struc­tur­ing of At­lantic LNG (AL­NG) in­tro­duced a new pric­ing sys­tem that links Trinidad and To­ba­go’s gas sales to in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets in Asia, Eu­rope and oil prices, al­low­ing the coun­try to earn more when glob­al en­er­gy prices rise.

His com­ments come af­ter En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said es­ca­lat­ing con­flict in the Mid­dle East could de­liv­er a po­ten­tial rev­enue wind­fall for Trinidad and To­ba­go, as in­sta­bil­i­ty threat­ens en­er­gy ship­ments through the Strait of Hor­muz, a key glob­al route for oil and liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas. Re­cent dis­rup­tions have al­ready pushed gas and oil prices up­ward amid fears of sup­ply short­ages.