The Energy Chamber of Trinidad and Tobago on Wednesday launched its Local Content Management System (LCMS), the first of its kind in the region, which seeks to establish a robust framework to estimate the proportion of a dollar spent with a given company, that remains within the national economy.
“A dollar spent in the energy sector and retained in the local economy, gets multiplied, thus adding significant value to the country and positively contributing to livelihoods both within and outside the sector,” said Dwight Mahabir, Deputy Chairman of the Energy Chamber of Trinidad and Tobago.
The launch of the system took place in a virtual event with over 300 representatives from the Upstream, Downstream and Energy Service contractors and suppliers, from Trinidad & Tobago, the wider Caribbean and internationally.
Mahabir noted that one of the longstanding and key strategic objectives of the system has been to “maximise the retention of value to the domestic economy from the expenditure of the major operator companies–both for their ongoing operations as well as capital investment projects.”
He emphasised that money spent by operators, “circulates in the local economy and creates jobs, opportunities for business expansion and tax dollars.”
The Energy Chamber said in a statement on Wednesday that the system has its genesis in the Local Content Charter which was signed by 23 operator companies at the Trinidad and Tobago Energy Conference 2017. The Charter committed operators to work toward improving Local Content in the supply chain.
The development of the Local Content Management System provides a system for the measurement, monitoring and reporting of local content and capacity development performance across the energy sector. The system creates a common repository of local content performance that can be jointly used by all operators and the supply chain, the Chamber said.
“Optimising local content is also important for building sustainability and for diversification of our exports,” Mahabir said. “The Energy Chamber has placed a strong emphasis on building the capacity and capabilities of local energy service companies to ensure that they are globally competitive.”
He said this is key if T&T companies are to be successful in exporting their services and thus contribute to the diversification of the economy.
The LCMS is championed by operators, such as bpTT, Shell, BHP Trinidad, EOG Resources, Atlantic and National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited.
T&T’s Minister of Energy and Energy Industries, Franklin Khan, in bringing the feature address at the launch, congratulated the Energy Chamber on this achievement on behalf of the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries.
“This is an important step in the pursuit of local content and local participation by the key stakeholders in Trinidad and Tobago’s Energy Sector,” he said.
The launch of the LCMS in T&T comes at a time when neighbouring oil producer Guyana is looking to strengthen its local content framework with the establishment of legislation. The new government has said this is to ensure more benefits from the country’s vast petroleum resources go to Guyanese.
President Irfaan Ali has since established a Local Content Panel to pursue this objective.
