By Curtis Williams
HOUSTON (Reuters) – Trinidad and Tobago received six bids from BP, Shell and U.S. shale producer EOG Resources on four blocks to explore for oil and gas at the close of the 2023 shallow water auction on Monday.
Trinidad plans to announce the winners within four months, Energy Minister Stuart Young said at the conclusion of the auction.
All three companies bid for the Modified UC block, which is close to the Teak, Sammaan and Poui production fields. The auction had no other bidders.
Trinidad is the largest producer of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in Latin America, with an installed capacity of 15 million metric tons per year of super-cooled gas. It is also one of the world’s largest exporters of methanol and ammonia, but its plants have been operating below full capacity in recent years due to a lack of gas.
In October 2023, the Trinidad government presented 13 blocks for tender. Monday’s results mean that nine of the 13 blocks received no interest and all bids were from companies already operating on the Caribbean island.
EOG Resources bid for three blocks, the Modified UC; the Lower Reverse L, which is west of Shell’s manatee discovery and on the border with neighboring Venezuela; and NCMA 4, in an area operated by Shell.
Shell bid for Modified UC, while BP, which bid for Modified UC, also bid for NCMA 2, which is north of Trinidad and not in the Columbus basin where the company has operated since the 1990s. 1970.
Trinidad made several changes to fiscal terms to attract more bids after the failure of its 2019 bidding round, including reducing fiscal liability for shallow water producers, increasing cost recovery from 50% to 60%, reducing extraordinary tax from 50% to 70%, increasing the exploration period from six years to eight years and reducing the proposal fee from US$40,000 to US$30,000.
(Reporting by Curtis Williams in Houston; Editing by Richard Chang)
