Rowley questions big oil find, calls announcement a political distraction

File: Keith Rowley

Keith Rowley told reporters Monday the government needs to provide full disclosure on the offshore oil find it reported last week.

The opposition leader also stated that the so-called "Jubilee Discovery" is not new, noting that the discovery was made during the Manning PNM administration. He called it a "hoax".

Rowley was speaking at a media conference at his office in Port of Spain.

Last Thursday, the government and top officials of the state oil company Petrotrin announced the discovery of a new oil reserve at Soldado acreage with an estimated 48 million of barrels of oil.

Rowley called that a misrepresentation of the facts and accused the government of playing politics with the country's resources.

He explained what he said are the facts as uncovered by research conducted by the opposition.

Rowley said the find was not new because since 2007 the Petroleum Company of T&T (Petrotrin) had commissioned the Venezuelan firm Vetra Consultants to do a field development plan for the area.

He said the firm evaluated two scenarios:

• the total value for the project life of 20 years is US$703 million with investments of US$107 million
• For the same period of 20 years for revenues of US$140 million and expenses of about US$165 million

He said, "48 million barrels of oil...cannot be evaluated by any known standard. The standard by which we evaluate reservoirs is not there. Therefore, one has to ask of the Ministry of Energy, what is the basis of this misrepresentation coming from the Ministry?"

He accused the Ministry of Energy of misrepresenting the facts, and suggested that Petrotrin be “held accountable for providing data that cannot stand up to scrutiny.”

Rowley stated further that the Venezuelan firm completed a field development plan in Cluster 6 of the Soldado field and presented the results to Petrotrin's management. He said the project was put on hold due to upgrade work at Petrotrin and other technical matters.

He charged that the government timed the announcement conveniently as a distraction from the problems that the People's Partnership is facing.

"Making an announcement geared solely, and knowingly and deliberately, to mislead the population and to put you in a feel-good mood, that great things are happening, God is a Trini, you have a Jubilee oilfield and very soon, in a matter of weeks, 12 months, we'll be pumping oil. And then you have the technical people being coerced into telling you: well some are light, some are heavy."

Rowley wants the government to provide citizens with all the details about the oil find. "This matter has been taken out of Petrotrin by the politicians and brought into the political arena to be used for political purposes," he claimed.