PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - Former energy minister, Stuart Young, Friday told his successor, Dr. Roodal Moonilal, that he would “do well to keep the theatre out of the serious business of the energy sector,’ after the Trinidad and Tobago government claimed that it had saved the country billions of dollars (one TT dollar=US$0.16) in revenue as a result of an error under the watch of the previous administration.
Energy Minister Dr. Roodal Moonilal (Right) and former energy minister Stuart Young (File Photo)Moonilal, speaking at the weekly post Cabinet news conference on Thursday evening, said that Cabinet considered and approved a note from the Ministry of Energy to amend a production sharing contract (PSC) for a particular energy block that is operated by Woodside Energy.
“It is the intention here that Woodside Energy in collaboration with bpTT would have entered into discussions and a contract for the development of this field,” Moonilall told reporters on entering office after the April 28 general election, the government found that Young “brought a note to cabinet in January 2025” asking ,for it to agree to a PSC for Woodside for the block.
He said the Cabinet agreed in January to a PSC involving the Energy Ministry, Woodside Energy and BP Exploration Operating Company Ltd, for this acreage.
“It was only discovered in April 2025, that the note taken to cabinet, and approved, contained a detrimental matrix involving costing and returns to the government and the people of Trinidad and Tobago by way of profit share.”
He said a table in the note which was recommended by Young and approved by the then Keith Rowley reduced the government’s share of the profits of the particular PSC by between 20 to 30 per cent.’
“What it meant is that this country stood to lose…if we did not act today…the country stood to loose in terms of revenue…$6.7 billion (US$1 billion) because of the note taken by Mr Stuart Young…over the life of the proposed deep water development,” Moonilal said, telling reporters that the mistake had been discovered by Woodside and not the ministry.
“We moved with haste to discuss…with the players and the stakeholders…and today we approved a new natural gas price class structure and matrix…which gave the government of Trinidad and Tobago…at the lowest end…10 per cent increase and at the highest end 20 per cent increase in our revenue from that particular project,” Moonilal said, adding “it amounts roughly by the calculations of those by the ministry to be one US billion dollars over the life of the project.
“I have asked incidentally for a complete investigation by the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries as to how an error…a mistake…a miscalculation…could take place with a pricing matrix that allows a government to lose one billion US dollars,” he added.
But in a statement posted on his Facebook page, Young said Moonilal’s attempt to attribute blame to him and the former government “for what he has admitted is a pricing matrix error in a previous Cabinet Note reeks of desperation.
“The pricing matrix that he refers to would have been prepared by the technical staff at the Ministry of Energy and vetted by the technical staff including the Permanent Secretary. I do not know what are the specifics that he is referring to but I am confident that it was not due to any ‘error’ on the part of the cabinet nor myself. “
Young said that the pricing matrix would be a complex formula that seeks to share profits made from the gas produced at varying global gas prices after deducting the recovery of costs and fiscal terms.
He said that this was all negotiated by the Ministry of Energy’s “very competent technical staff “who would have prepared the cabinet note and PSC.
“What is also pathetic is Moonilal’s claim that this government has recovered revenue. This is another blatant attempt to hoodwink the population as the project which the production sharing contact refers to has not even been sanctioned.
“Woodside and bp have not taken a decision to produce this block so any claim of recovered revenue is fictitious and based on conjecture. In fact, Minister Moonilal should advise the country if Woodside are still pursuing the deepwater project “Calypso” or if they are preparing to shut down their operations and depart Trinidad and Tobago.”
Young said it is clear that Moonilal is “struggling to prove himself in his new role and is out of his depth.
“He continues to grasp at straws whilst surviving off of the work that was done previously. His claims that he would pursue gas in Grenada, Suriname and Guyana have evaporated and every utterance he makes about successful gas production is a result of previous work and nothing to do with him,” Young said, adding “Moonilal would do well to keep the theatre out of the serious business of the energy sector”.
