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TT a world leader in LNG production

Manning tells ministerial Summit:

By RIA TAITT, Newsday TT

Prime Minister Patrick Manning, addressing an LNG Ministerial Summit in Washington DC, promoted this country as a world leader in LNG production with a government committed to developing and using the natural resources to generate the "real benefits" of employment creation, sustainable economic development and a long term, stable and if possible, predictable revenue stream. Manning added that equally important was the development of local technical and managerial skills to manage the country's development, thereby enriching the capital stock of human resource. Raising the issue of an international social conscience, Manning emphasised that Trinidad and Tobago, as one of the gas producing countries, was concerned about deprivation and underdevelopment especially within its own region. "None of us can escape the effects of over one billion people living in squalor, surviving on scraps with less than one US dollar a day.

Such conditions breed disease, hate, revenge, nihilism and the traumatic violence that we have been witnessing very regularly in recent times," the PM noted, adding: "We have a responsibility to be ‘our brother's keepers.'" He said the drop in tourism and the loss of market for agricultural produce had affected the fragile economies in the Caribbean region. In this regard, Trinidad and Tobago was contemplating helping to reduce the energy costs with a natural gas pipeline from Trinidad and Tobago through the Caribbean Sea up to the French island of Guadeloupe, Manning stated. The Prime Minister's address, which gave a strong account of Trinidad and Tobago's importance as a world natural gas producer, noted that the security and reliability of its supply were key factors which had assisted this country in building and consolidating its position in the international natural gas market. Manning zeroed in on Trinidad and Tobago's other assets — its political stability, open democracy "where free and fair elections are held on time and citizens enjoy fundamental human rights and freedoms" and its plural society, "renowned for its racial harmony and unity in diversity" — which were critical in facilitating its economic progress.

The PM added that the country's and the government's committment to openness, transparency and accountability in public affairs, also helped in attracting foreign investment. He asserted that the current magnitude of these investments and the potential returns made transparency and accountability in energy sector transactions even more crucial. In selling Trinidad and Tobago, Manning explained to his international audience that this country was the largest exporter of ammonia and methanol in the world, with a mixture of both local and foreign investment in these plants. On the issue of LNG, the Prime Minister recalled that when the Government examined the potential of LNG export in 1992, the market potential in the Atlantic basin was lean. He said the "bold and courageous decision" to approve the export of LNG to the USA and Spain in 1996, had bore fruit. "We have moved from being a non-producer to now the second largest producer of LNG in the Atlantic Basin and the largest in the Western Hemisphere," he stated.

With the agreement for the fourth LNG train providing for the extraction of ethane, Manning said it meant that the country's ethane extraction would be able to support a "world scale ethylene plant of 800,000 metric tonnes per year and will provide a new platform to deepen the industrial capacity of my country...We expect a significant burst of industrial activity as a result of this development which will deliver great social benefits to the population as well," he stated. But Manning stressed that the Government wanted to use the LNG revenue to develop the social and economic welfare of the citizens. In this regard it was placing renewed emphasis and significant resources on education, health, housing, social security, small business development and community enhancement.

"We want to give every single citizen in Trinidad and Tobago the opportunity to find individual fulfilment and it is toward this end that we shall employ the revenues from the exploitation of our natural gas reserves. We are doing this through emphasis on educating and training them to acquire skills and develop entrepreneurship," he said. The Prime Minister couldn't resist putting in a plug for Trinidad Carnival, saying: "Just as Trinidad Carnival has through its festivities warmed the hearts of many visitors, so too will LNG from the shores of Trinidad and Tobago be bringing warmth into the homes of those to whom we export."

Trinidad and Tobago News

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