There is a straightforward test for any government's contribution to the energy sector: what did you build? Not what did you inherit, not what reached first gas on your watch because someone else sanctioned it four years earlier, but what new upstream initiative did you conceive, negotiate, and bring to a final investment decision?
Applied to the UNC government that took office in May 2025, the answer so far is nothing.
That is not an opposition talking point. It is the output of a timeline. Every major oil and gas project producing or approaching first gas in the 2025-2027 window was sanctioned under the PNM administration of Keith Rowley, with Stuart Young as Energy Minister. The dates are public record. The following table assembles them in one place.
The Project Timeline
| Project | Operator | Key Decision | Date | Government | First Gas / Output | Est. Investment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cypre | bpTT | FID | Sep 2022 | PNM | Apr 3, 2025 (pre-UNC) | - |
| Mento | bpTT / EOG | Platform fabrication & installation | 2023-2024 | PNM | May 29, 2025 | - |
| Manatee | Shell | PSC signed | Nov 2021 | PNM | 2027 (target) | ~US$1.3B |
| Manatee | Shell | FEED awarded | Mar 2023 | PNM | - | - |
| Manatee | Shell | FID | Jul 9, 2024 | PNM | 604 MMscf/d peak | - |
| Ginger | bpTT | FID | Mar 27, 2025 | PNM | 2027 (target) | - |
| Coconut | bpTT / EOG | JV approved | 2024 | PNM | 2027 (target) | - |
| ExxonMobil Deepwater | ExxonMobil | Bidding round launched | Jan 27, 2025 | PNM | Exploration phase | - |
| Brechin Castle Solar | Consortium | Consortium formed | 2019 | PNM | Jul 17, 2025 | - |
| Brechin Castle Solar | Consortium | Construction began | Q3 2023 | PNM | First electrons delivered | - |
| Dragon Gas | Shell / NGC | OFAC licence secured | Oct 2023 | PNM | TBD | - |
| Aphrodite | Shell | FID | Jun 3, 2025 | UNC (5 weeks in) | TBD | - |
Read the table from top to bottom. Cypre, the bpTT gas field that reached first production on April 3, 2025, was sanctioned in September 2022 - two and a half years before the UNC took office. Peak output is approximately 250 million standard cubic feet per day. The platform was built, the wells drilled, the pipeline connected, and the gas flowing before the new government was sworn in. Energy Minister Roodal Moonilal subsequently claimed credit through a 2014 fiscal incentive framework. That incentive regime may have been relevant to bpTT's economics, but it did not conceive Cypre, it did not sanction Cypre, and it did not build Cypre.
Mento, the bpTT-EOG joint venture, hit first gas on May 29, 2025 - roughly one month after the UNC entered office. The platform was fabricated at the TOFCO yard in La Brea and installed offshore during the PNM's final year. Claiming credit for a platform that was already sitting on the seabed when you arrived is a reach.
Shell's Manatee - the single largest project in Trinidad and Tobago's current upstream pipeline - followed a sequence that began well before 2025. The production-sharing contract was signed in November 2021. Shell awarded the front-end engineering and design contract in March 2023. The final investment decision came on July 9, 2024. All three milestones occurred under the PNM. Manatee will produce an estimated 604 million standard cubic feet per day at peak from the 2.7 trillion cubic feet field in the East Coast Marine Area, with first gas targeted for 2027. The investment is approximately US$1.3 billion. Shell committed that capital because it had negotiated terms with the Rowley administration over several years. The UNC's role, when Manatee gas eventually flows, will be to collect the revenue.
bpTT's Ginger field received its FID on March 27, 2025 - exactly one month before the general election. Coconut, the bpTT-EOG joint venture, was approved under the PNM and targets first gas in 2027 as well. These are not ambiguous cases.
The ExxonMobil Question
Stuart Young launched the deep-water competitive bidding round on January 27, 2025, three months before the election. The round specifically targeted blocks adjacent to Guyana's prolific Stabroek block, where ExxonMobil has been the dominant operator. The intent was explicit: bring ExxonMobil into Trinidad and Tobago's deep-water acreage.
On August 12, 2025, the UNC government signed the production-sharing contract with ExxonMobil. Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar held a ceremony. It coincided with the UNC's 100th day in office. The optics were deliberate.
Young's response was direct. He told media that it was the PNM administration that engaged ExxonMobil and structured the bidding round that led to the PSC. The timeline supports that claim. You cannot sign a PSC that results from a bidding round your predecessor launched and then present it as your initiative. The negotiation, the legal framework, the block delineation, the engagement with ExxonMobil - all of that predates the UNC.
Whether the UNC government negotiated favourable PSC terms is a separate and valid question. But the distinction between conceiving a project and executing someone else's paperwork matters. One is leadership, the other is administration.
Brechin Castle and the Energy Transition
Even the country's flagship renewable energy project traces to the PNM era. The Brechin Castle solar facility in Siparia saw its consortium formed in 2019. Construction began in the third quarter of 2023. First electrons were delivered on July 17, 2025 - two months after the UNC took office.
The project represents Trinidad and Tobago's first utility-scale solar installation, a milestone in a country that generates virtually all its electricity from natural gas. The consortium negotiated its grid connection and power purchase terms with the previous government. The UNC inherited a finished asset.
The Borderline Case: Aphrodite
Shell's Aphrodite field received its FID on June 3, 2025 - five weeks after the UNC was sworn in. This is the closest any project comes to a legitimate UNC claim. Shell would have been in advanced discussions with both governments during the transition period, and the final decision likely reflected regulatory assurances from the incoming administration.
Fair enough. But a single FID taken five weeks into a government's tenure, on a project that was in Shell's development pipeline for years, does not constitute an energy strategy. It constitutes continuity.
Dragon Gas: Declared Dead, Then Resurrected
The Dragon Gas saga deserves separate treatment, but the credit question applies here too. The PNM secured the original OFAC licence in October 2023 after Young personally led delegations to both Washington and Caracas. He negotiated the 30-year Venezuelan exploration licence signed in December 2023. Trinidad and Tobago began paying advance taxes to Venezuela under the anticipated terms.
When the Trump administration revoked the OFAC licence in April 2025, newly installed Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar declared Dragon dead on May 6. Her government pivoted to Guyana as an alternative gas source. By September, that position had reversed entirely. By October, the UNC was claiming the revived Dragon deal as its own achievement.
The current iteration of Dragon operates under different OFAC terms - General Licences issued to international companies rather than to the government of Trinidad and Tobago, with mandatory US company participation and revenue paid into US-controlled funds. Whether those terms are better or worse for Trinbagonians is debatable. What is not debatable is who built the original framework that made the project viable in the first place.
What Has the UNC Conceived?
This is the question that the timeline forces. Eleven months into the UNC's tenure, no genuinely new upstream initiative has been identified. No new bidding round. No new PSC for a field the PNM had not already engaged. No new operator brought to Trinidad and Tobago's acreage. No new exploration licence negotiated from scratch.
Gas production sits at approximately 2.54 billion cubic feet per day, roughly 33 percent below the 2015 peak of 3.8 bcf/d. The 2027 convergence - when Manatee, Ginger, Coconut, and potentially Dragon are all expected to deliver first gas - represents the country's best chance to reverse a decade of decline. Every project in that convergence was PNM-initiated. The question is not whether those projects will produce gas. They almost certainly will, assuming no major technical failures. The question is what happens after 2027. What comes next? Who is working on the projects that will matter in 2030 and 2032?
If the answer is no one, the current production decline has merely been paused, not reversed.
The Governance Overlay
The credit question sits alongside a governance question. Energy Minister Moonilal faces a $275 million lawsuit related to the EMBD highway cartel case, with the trial set for June 2026. Separately, Moonilal approved a Heritage Petroleum contract to TN Ramnauth - a co-defendant with Moonilal in the same EMBD matter. Awarding a state oil company contract to a fellow defendant in a fraud case invites scrutiny regardless of whether the contract terms themselves were competitive.
NGC Chairman Gerald Ramdeen's corruption charges - related to an alleged legal fees kickback scheme with former attorney general Anand Ramlogan - were discontinued in October 2022 after the key witness refused to testify. The State retained the option to reinstate. As noted in the Dragon Gas analysis, Ramdeen now oversees NGC's role in the largest energy negotiation in the country's history.
These are the people directing Trinidad and Tobago's energy future. The fiscal picture depends on what they do with it. The downstream economy at Point Lisas depends on whether NGC can maintain reliable supply relationships. The country's entire economic model depends on an energy sector that someone, at some point, has to actively manage rather than simply occupy.
Let the Dates Speak
Trinbagonians do not need to take Stuart Young's word for it, nor Moonilal's. The dates speak for themselves. Final investment decisions are documented events. Production-sharing contracts are public records. OFAC licences have issue dates. Platform fabrication timelines are reported by the companies that build them.
The PNM's energy record has its own failures - the decade-long production decline happened on its watch, and the gas curtailments at Point Lisas began years before the UNC took office. This is not an argument that the PNM managed the sector perfectly. It is an observation that the PNM managed the sector. The pipeline of projects delivering results in 2025, 2026, and 2027 exists because someone made decisions, negotiated terms, and secured commitments.
The UNC has been in office for nearly a year. The pipeline it inherited is executing. The pipeline it has built is empty.
Sources
- bpTT: Cypre first gas announcement (April 3, 2025)
- Shell Trinidad and Tobago: Manatee FID announcement (July 9, 2024)
- bpTT: Ginger FID announcement (March 27, 2025)
- bpTT / EOG Resources: Mento first gas confirmation (May 29, 2025)
- Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries: Deep Water Competitive Bidding Round launch (January 27, 2025)
- Government of Trinidad and Tobago: ExxonMobil PSC signing ceremony (August 12, 2025)
- Stuart Young: Press statements on PNM energy legacy (2025-2026, via Trinidad Guardian, Trinidad Express)
- OFAC: Original Dragon Gas licence amendment (October 2023)
- Shell: Aphrodite FID announcement (June 3, 2025)
- Brechin Castle Solar: First electrons delivered (July 17, 2025, via Energy Chamber reporting)
- Trinidad Guardian: Moonilal fiscal incentive claims regarding Cypre (2025)
- EMBD highway cartel lawsuit filings: High Court of Trinidad and Tobago
- Ministry of Energy: Gas production statistics, 2024 annual review
- Roodal Moonilal: Heritage Petroleum contract approval to TN Ramnauth (2025, via Trinidad Express)
- DPP: Discontinuance of charges against Gerald Ramdeen (October 2022)