Trinidad and Tobago will invest US$1 billion to repair pipelines in the oil and gas sector.
Minister of Energy and Energy Industries, Dr Roodal Moonilal, revealed the figure as he spoke to members of the media on Friday, indicating that the Government has begun a programme to address the oil leaks that have plagued the country’s pipelines.
“It is really in excess, if you need to look at the entire picture of doing out the infrastructure offshore, it could be in excess of about a billion United States dollars. But that is because the last administration left it in a complete state of disrepair. They did not even spend a cent to repair one pipeline in that area. So when we came, it was like everything had to be done and almost every day we are getting reports of small leaks, for example, there are pipes that are leaking in concrete structures. It is that bad.”
The Energy Minister said the current administration is addressing an issue that was ignored by the last administration.
“One of the problems we inherited here was an almost devastated, deteriorating, dilapidated infrastructure both onshore and offshore, particularly offshore, in the south-west coast, the Soldado area and so on, which I toured recently. And we are working with Heritage and other partners for a massive investment to repair lines, pipeline infrastructure. But also there are several connector bridges between installations and so on.”
Dr Moonilal highlighted the importance of repairing these leaks.
“They pose now serious health and safety and environmental threats in that area. So we are working with Heritage now to see how best we can repair and replace existing dilapidated infrastructure. And this is, of course, a very technical piece of work, and it is ongoing. But I think Heritage has started, and I did visit some of the projects that they have completed, and they have done very good work in a short space of time with absolutely zero accidents and lost time, so we’re extremely pleased with that.”
The Energy Minister added that the Government is working with international partners and investors to fund the project.