Shell has secured a win for a shallow water block from the government of Trinidad and Tobago, outpacing bids made by other energy giants like BP and EOG Resources. With Trinidad and Tobago’s declining natural gas output, the nation is struggling to provide sufficient gas to its liquefied natural gas and petrochemical facilities.
The government is seeking to increase its natural gas production rates and has organized bidding rounds to attract producers to advance exploration and production activities in the country. It is also urging producers to achieve the initial output from offshore projects to raise production.
Shell owns a majority stake in Trinidad’s Atlantic LNG project, along with BP. This project has a production capacity of 15.3 million tons per annum. The two companies have been trying to increase the supply of gas for the liquefaction trains of the project.
As such, Shell’s victory against other bidders for the shallow water block is indeed significant for the company.
Shell is currently in talks with the government of the Caribbean nation to finalize the terms for working on the Modified U(c) block.
This block attracted the most attention among the 13 areas that were presented in the shallow water auction by the government in the previous year. According to official data, these 13 areas hold an estimated 13.4 trillion cubic feet of gas.