Newsday ( Trinidad and Tobago )
27 April 2023 ( Page 16 )
Young: No shortage of LPG
SEAN DOUGLAS ENERGY Minister Stuart Young said on Tuesday that TT has no shortage of LPG (cooking gas), as suppliers, Phoenix Park Gas Processors Ltd, had built up its inventory of LPG before its recent planned maintenance shutdown. In the Senate he was replying to an urgent question by Opposition Senator Wade Mark who asked what measures were being taken to address an alleged shutdown of cooking gas production and several petrochemical plants at Point Lisas, the latter allegedly triggered by an electrical fire at bpTT's hub for the Mahogany gas field, the latter claim which Young flatly denied. Young said on Sunday the PPGPL had said its facility had gone offline for 19 days from April 17 due to a planned routine maintenance scheduled since a year ago, not due to any gassupplychallenges. The company had said it had been building up its LPG inventory to maintain supplies to the local market to ensure no shortages in the gas supply chain, he related, having consulted stakeholders beforehand. Quoting the PPGPL statement, he said, "PPGPL and NP continue to maintain adequate LPG inventory and as such there is no LPG shortage in TT:' "PPGPL has enough cooking gas inventory to supply the local market:" Mark, in a supplemental question, asked if a gassupply shortage had temporarily shut several Point Lisas plants, namely MHTMIA, Tringen 2, and three Nutrien plants. Young replied, "Plants at Point Lisas from time to time, similar to PPGPL, have to go down to do routine maintenance works. Some of those plants will fall into that category. The original question tried to link it, wrongly, to a fire on the Mahogany hub:' He quoted bpTT president David Campbell, "It was a small fire on a temporary piece of equipment and was quickly contained:' In the precautionary response process the equipment was temporarily shut down, he added. He further quoted Campbell, "After all checks were done the platform was restarted within six hours and is back to normal production levels:' Young declared, "In other words, what went on at the Mahogany platform had nothing to do with the state of any of the plants on the Point Lisas Estate:' He then spoke about gassupply. "What I can say is there have been some temporary difficulties in gas supply from one of our major natural gas upstream suppliers that has affected some of the plants at Point Lisas:" He said some of the plants had used the occasion to do routine maintenance. "It does not mean that we are not always concerned about consistent gas supplies from upstream producers whom the Government and NGC have absolutely no control over what happens with respect to their production, saved to being in a position as we've done consistently to ensure all that needs to be done on our part are done so there will be a maintained production of natural gas:' Mark asked when would a normal resumption of natural gas occur. Young retorted that due to what happened between 20102015 (under the former government), the NGC faced $9 billion daims due to supply curtailment, resulting in current difficulties with gas supplies. "I can assure the population that with restructuring and renegotiation of the contracts we are not susceptible to any of those things. "As we are speaking, some of the plants that were refered to by Senator Mark are on their way to being restarted as they get gas supply:'