Trinidad&Tobago: Heritage Petroleum signs new E&P license

Trinidad and Tobago: Heritage Petroleum signs a new Exploration & Production license with Trinidad and Tobago.

The people’s national movement (PNM) stated this piece of information through social media. According to PNM, Heritage Petroleum Company Limited declared the successful completion of negotiations with the Government of Trinidad and Tobago for a new Exploration & Production license in its offshore acreage.

According to the reports, the new license was administered at a signing convention on Wednesday 20th January, at the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries (MEEI), Port of Spain. Today’s signing ceremony, which was chaired by the Minister of Energy and Energy Industries, Senator the Honourable Franklin Khan, is the culmination of months of negotiations between the Heritage and senior officials at the MEEI.

Key features about Exploration and Production License
This new Exploration and Production License combines the entire acreage of both the previous Trinmar Licensed Area and the North Marine Licensed Area, creating a single block that covers just over 96,000 hectares of offshore property. This makes it the single largest offshore exploration and production block on the west coast of the island. The licenses for the two previous areas expired in November 2019.

Mutually beneficial agreement
Under the terms of this new agreement, the Government will benefit from payments made by Heritage over the 6-year life of the contract amounting to close to 100 million dollars.
Furthermore, Minister Khan added, “I would like to publicly congratulate the performance of Heritage over the last two years. They have been the flagship State enterprise. As we speak, they have made, in their first year of operation, a profit of $1.4 billion, paying the State over $800 million in taxes. From all indications, they will repeat that performance in 2020 when the audited financials are completed”.

Minister Khan added that Heritage’s performance has justified the Government’s decision to restructure Petrotrin and that this new license will further strengthen the company’s performance.

Adding more points about this agreement, According to Chairman Michael Quamina, “the license will further unlock the value of the company’s offshore resources through a new and more robust phase of exploration activity. The new license provides the security we need to continue to execute our commercial strategy in the offshore area.”

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