The Gas Guntalk

There is always the boast, by officials of the National Gas Company, the National Energy Corporation and other state entities that Trinidad and Tobago is a model for gas monetization. We are among the planet’s best, they boast, when it comes to getting gas out of the ground and converting it to products of value. This is just ordinary Trini showboating and guntalk. The fact is that we are a third-rate monetizer of our prodigious oil and gas resources. Third rate and third world. The following seven reasons explain how this is so.

First, the oil and gas industry in the post-1970 phase has been commandeered by a very few individuals. Gaffney and Cline, the British consultants, in their 2002 Master Plan on the industry noted: “It is evident that this most critical sector of the national economy is highly dependent on the capability and integrity of a handful of industry professionals. This would be a cause for concern in any private sector company and should be of considerable concern to the Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.” These gas ideologues have remained a law unto themselves, a baronial sect, above scrutiny and the censor of state bureaucrats and parliament. For example, when these individuals were called by the Joint Select Committee of Parliament to justify the economics of smelter, they continually refused to attend. This situation smacks of the cattle baron, sheriff-emasculating culture of the American Wild West of the 19th Century. Second, the most prestigious member of this baronial caste, with a history of research, education and business in the petroleum economy, well knows that real monetization of this sector comes from ownership of supply. We contract foreigners to survey, explore, drill and transport. We collect the dividends, royalties, taxes. After forty years in this business, if we were really in the big league, we would have had greater control of our own gas exploration, supply and transport. Brazil, India, China, Australia have created global oil extraction companies, over the past half a century, using the best research in their universities and by buying knowledge and technology internationally. Boasting of LNG and Point Lisas is like boasting we wear jeans and sneakers. Third, the energy industry is the most lucrative on the planet. Petrotrin owns some of the most extensive gas and oil fields around the island. It produces a range of high value products. Today it is in a bust mode. Look and you will soon see foreign investors coming in to absolve it. The company’s big man has been taken and sent to graze at the National Gas Company, unscathed by his professional failures. Again, this friend-friend thing. Third class, third rate, third world. Fourth, is this latest 21st Century drive to monetize gas using aluminum and steel the best we are capable of? The costs of smelter far outweigh any small change that would accrue to us. The proposed steel mill is a very good example of “chooking” a non-viable industry into a viable economic landscape at Claxton Bay. Gas monetization, smelter-and-steel style, is simply the destruction of viable resources - financial, health and ecological - to put a little cash into Mr Manning’s coffers. It is uneconomic. It is like those imperialists, feudal kings, planters of old who converted the blood of tribal nations (bullion), of peasants (corn), of slaves (sugar) into gold to perpetuate imperialism, feudalism, plantocracy. In Mr Manning’s case, “gas monetization” means the conversion of ill-gained, uneconomic cash into a legacy of partisan rule. Fifth, monetization is no guarantee of genuine economic development. It would be difficult to claim that citizens are getting a fair exchange for the billions of dollars which they put into the government’s coffers annually. Citizens are getting the very short end of the stick, for example, in security, health care, education, agriculture, land use development, ecological protection and water management. We get plenty showboating and showcasing: waterfront project, presidential palace, boardwalk for Maracas. Monetization does not necessarily lead to diversification or development. Sixth, there seems to be a rush to get as much gas out of the ground as fast as possible. An emissary has been sent to Caracas to lobby President Chavez for that cross border gas bubble in South. The Chinese are now preparing to drill for gas in the Gulf. There is a rush to hand out contracts to gas hunters. One expert is calling for a decrease in petroleum taxes for gas explorers. There seems to be no attempt to budget our gas, that is, to leave some for future generations. We are leaving mounting debts for our children, but no gas. Monetization really means depleting as much gas as possible in the quickest possible time, without any gas budgeting for a future economy. This bespeaks greed, irrationality, and non-sustainable, third-rate economic planning. Seventh, our Minister of Energy has promised that in the “next term” the government would focus on renewables. What we should have been doing two terms ago, incrementally implementing technologies for solar, wind, wave, tidal energy, we are putting off for next term. We continue to beat the tired old donkey and mule of oil and gas. Hydrocarbons are no longer cool. They are exhaustible, and exhaust the planet. Is this a good model for gas monetization? God bless the prestige school, Power Point boys who sing this model. This is what Sparrow sang of them: “If I was bright I woulda be a damn fool”. Wayne Kublalsingh