The good times will not roll on forever

By Raffique Shah
Sunday, August 26th 2007

Natural GasPrime Minister Patrick Manning and his critics seem to be missing the main issue in the heated debate over the Ryder Scott report on our gas reserves. It’s not about how much gas there is, or how much more is waiting to be “discovered”. If some global energy experts are right, Trinidad and Tobago is sitting on possible reserves of 90 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas. And if, over the next ten years, we succeed in adding 25 per cent of that volume to our proved reserves, then Mr Manning’s industrialisation programme will be adequately serviced with its principal feedstock, relatively cheap gas. If they are wrong, if gas runs out in ten years, then we’d be left with a mass of abandoned, rundown plants, much the way Texaco left us holding a skeletal refinery that was on the brink of collapse.
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