UNC MP, David Lee, said the Energy Minister Stuart Young’s recent review of the energy sector in 2022 was nothing but a deceptive fabrication to cover up the reality that T&T’s energy sector has collapsed due to this government’s chaos and dismal performance.
In a statement, Lee said it is utterly ridiculous that Minister Young claimed that our energy sector received global recognition in the last year when this nation has been in the energy industry for over 100 years, creating a global brand decades before and was once viewed as the Caribbean’s leading energy economy before decimation by this government.
He said, “The foreign energy trips of this government were not a result of global recognition but this government being forced to go “beg” energy companies for investments as seven years without growth and incentives in our energy sector had made T&T globally unattractive.
According to Lee, “Minister Young needs to end the political delusion and admit that higher energy revenues had nothing to do with this government’s policies but were a result of the European war.”
“Highlighting Heritage oil production as a success story is “scraping the barrel” for achievements because after 4 years Heritage is yet to surpass the oil production of Petrotrin while this nation’s entire oil production for the last fiscal year fell at least 25,000 barrels short of the promised target. It was even more absurd to boast about NGC’s profitability when as the sole aggregator of natural gas in T&T it has always been profitable except when it made a loss for the first time under this government.”
Lee said, “The usual stitch-up from Minister Young that “we have negotiated more gas” cannot hide the destruction of our gas sector which is now at the lowest level of gas production in 18 years. Maybe the word success has a different meaning in the PNM’s dictionary, but this year’s flop of the deep water bid where a mere 4 of the 17 blocks received bids was not success but a reflection of how unattractive the energy sector has become under this government.”
He added, “The time for hollow words such as the “energy sector contributed to the welfare of our people” must cease especially when the Petrotrin refinery has been abandoned, the Minister of Energy continues to hide the report on the Niquan explosion from the public, four divers lost their lives in Paria’s pipelines and citizens face concerns on their fuel security given the past reports of financial problems at Paria Fuel Trading Company Limited.
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