‘More energy companies will leave if gas supply is low’

For­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Con­rad Enill is warn­ing that more com­pa­nies could leave Trinidad and To­ba­go if the coun­try can­not guar­an­tee suf­fi­cient nat­ur­al gas sup­plies, fol­low­ing Nu­trien’s de­ci­sion to per­ma­nent­ly shut its ni­tro­gen op­er­a­tions at Point Lisas.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Enill said the clo­sure high­light­ed the im­por­tance of both the quan­ti­ty and price of nat­ur­al gas to the com­pet­i­tive­ness of the down­stream en­er­gy sec­tor.

“If the gas is­sue has not been re­solved and com­pa­nies are un­able to tell their fi­nanciers that they can bor­row mon­ey to up­grade plant, but they will have gas sup­ply for a par­tic­u­lar pe­ri­od, then you are go­ing to find com­pa­nies look­ing for oth­er places where there’s a guar­an­tee of sup­ply,” he said.