(Trinidad Guardian) North America’s booming shale oil and gas industry is affecting T&T’s main energy company. President of state-owned Petrotrin Khalid Hassanali on Tuesday admitted the shale has been negatively impacting on the company’s sales of oil and gas.
Speaking at the company’s Process Safety Management Conference, Preventing Major Incidents, at the Petrotrin Staff Club, Pointe-a-Pierre, Hassanali said because of high prices on the global market, refineries in the United Statesx and Canada are using the cheaper shale products. That means fewer fuel sales for T&T.
“Within recent times in the world market, you would notice there is now shale oil in North America, there is now shale gas in North America, so refineries are operating using cheaper crude and cheaper gas for their energy,” he said. “Therefore refinery profitability is good in North America but not as good outside of North America because natural gas prices are where they are and of course oil prices are high.”
Hassanali said Petrotrin has been continuing oil and gas exploration throughout the country and within T&T’s coastal boarders, which has been profitable. However, in the marketing of the products the country is experiencing low profit margins.
“Petrotrin is an integrated company, so our exploration and production business . . . is producing oil which goes into the refinery. We don’t sell the oil. These days, the E&P business is profitable but the refining and marketing business these days are experiencing low margins as most refineries outside of the United States,” he said.
“So yes we do have our challenges right now but our management is preparing and is in the throes of completing a five-year forecast. We have to look at our planning in five-year cycles at least because we have to project oil prices, refinery margins and our costs.”
Hassanali said due to decreasing sales, operational changes needs to be made within the company for the next five years. He does not believe it is not all doom and gloom for the company, however. He said the oil business is prone to rises and falls and he believes profits should be up again in the coming years. “We did come through in around 2008, where we had the highest oil prices. Those days were the highest refinery margins.
