Stakeholders praise PPGPL selection for Guyana project

Phoenix Park Gas Proces­sors Ltd (PPG­PL) has been se­lect­ed as the pre­ferred op­er­a­tor for Guyana’s Nat­ur­al Gas Liq­uids (NGL) plant, a de­vel­op­ment in­dus­try lead­ers say un­der­scores T&T’s grow­ing abil­i­ty to ex­port en­er­gy ser­vices and ex­per­tise across the Caribbean.

The an­nounce­ment from Guyana’s Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter on Tues­day con­firmed that PPG­PL, to­geth­er with lo­cal part­ner Guy­Gas Inc., emerged as the first-ranked bid­der for the op­er­a­tions and main­te­nance (O&M) of the Phase One nat­ur­al gas liq­uids (NGL) plant at the Wales Gas-to-En­er­gy project.|

The Guyanese cab­i­net has grant­ed its no ob­jec­tion to the com­mence­ment of ne­go­ti­a­tions with the com­pa­nies, with a fi­nal agree­ment sub­ject to tech­ni­cal and le­gal due dili­gence re­views.

The se­lec­tion fol­lows an open Re­quest for Pro­pos­als, ad­ver­tised in Jan­u­ary 2025 in the Guyana Chron­i­cle, Guyana Times, Kai­eteur News and Stabroek News, un­der the Na­tion­al Pro­cure­ment and Ten­der Ad­min­is­tra­tion Board ref­er­ence 124/2025/02.

The En­er­gy Cham­ber of  T&T wel­comed the de­vel­op­ment, de­scrib­ing it as a pos­i­tive out­come for the re­gion and a re­flec­tion of the ca­pa­bil­i­ties de­vel­oped with­in T&T’s gas-pro­cess­ing in­dus­try.

It not­ed that PPG­PL’s suc­cess fol­lowed a com­pet­i­tive pro­cure­ment ex­er­cise and re­flect­ed decades of ac­cu­mu­lat­ed tech­ni­cal ex­pe­ri­ence.
“The En­er­gy Cham­ber notes that PPG­PL’s se­lec­tion fol­lowed an open, com­pet­i­tive pro­cure­ment process and re­flects the depth of tech­ni­cal ex­pe­ri­ence that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s nat­ur­al gas pro­cess­ing sec­tor has ac­cu­mu­lat­ed over sev­er­al decades.”

The Cham­ber ar­gued that re­gion­al en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion will be­come in­creas­ing­ly im­por­tant as Caribbean coun­tries seek to strength­en en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty.
“We have con­sis­tent­ly sup­port­ed greater co­op­er­a­tion among Caribbean en­er­gy pro­duc­ers and ser­vice providers,” the Cham­ber stat­ed.
“Arrange­ments of this na­ture, where re­gion­al ex­per­tise is de­ployed to ad­vance en­er­gy in­fra­struc­ture de­vel­op­ment across mem­ber states, are con­sis­tent with the Cham­ber’s po­si­tion that the Caribbean’s long-term en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty is best served through struc­tured part­ner­ship rather than iso­lat­ed de­vel­op­ment.”

The or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so high­light­ed the need for work­force de­vel­op­ment as Guyana pre­pares for com­mer­cial op­er­a­tions.

“The Cham­ber al­so notes the com­mit­ment to Guyanese work­force de­vel­op­ment em­bed­ded in the arrange­ment and en­cour­ages all par­ties to en­sure that skills trans­fer re­mains a cen­tral fea­ture of the O&M pro­gramme as the fa­cil­i­ty moves to­ward its tar­get­ed 2027 start-up.”

Pres­i­dent of the Guyana Man­u­fac­tur­ing and Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (GM­SA) Rafeek Khan said man­u­fac­tur­ers view the ap­point­ment as an en­cour­ag­ing sign for Guyana’s en­er­gy fu­ture.

“Right now, it is a bit pre­lim­i­nary to re­al­ly say when this will be ex­e­cut­ed for dis­tri­b­u­tion. But def­i­nite­ly, in my opin­ion, we al­ways want to have an ex­pe­ri­enced op­er­a­tor, stake­hold­er, be­ing part of what­ev­er Guyana is do­ing,” Khan said.

He not­ed that T&T’s long his­to­ry in the nat­ur­al gas in­dus­try makes the part­ner­ship valu­able.
“Whether you’re from Trinidad, or you’re from the Caribbean, let’s say, or from an­oth­er part of the world, in my opin­ion, it is good that we have an ex­pe­ri­enced part­ner.”
“It would not do good for Guyana en­ter­ing in­to a new en­deav­our with­out an ex­pe­ri­enced part­ner, an ex­pe­ri­enced part­ner that is close by with­in the re­gion. So that is a plus.”

Khan said busi­ness­es are now fo­cussed on when the wider ben­e­fits of the gas-to-en­er­gy project will be­gin reach­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers and con­sumers.

“In terms of im­ple­men­ta­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion and sales and all those things, that is what man­u­fac­tur­ers are await­ing to see, when the prices will be im­pact­ing con­sumers and man­u­fac­tur­ers.”

“That will be the ul­ti­mate vic­to­ry once it be­comes a re­al­i­ty. But for now, I can just say, it’s a pos­i­tive step in the right di­rec­tion to en­sur­ing that we have an ex­pe­ri­enced part­ner to man­age and op­er­ate.”

He added that low­er en­er­gy costs re­main one of the main ex­pec­ta­tions sur­round­ing the project.

“I know ul­ti­mate­ly the con­sumer will ben­e­fit, every cit­i­zen of Guyana will ben­e­fit from af­ford­able en­er­gy cut by at least 50 per cent.”

“The news that PPG­PL has been se­lect­ed to pro­vide op­er­a­tions and main­te­nance sup­port for the gas pro­cess­ing fa­cil­i­ty un­der con­struc­tion in the Wales in­dus­tri­al es­tate in Guyana is pos­i­tive for the com­pa­ny and for Trinidad & To­ba­go,” Dri­ver said.

He not­ed that with lim­it­ed room for ma­jor do­mes­tic ex­pan­sion, the com­pa­ny has in­creas­ing­ly looked over­seas.

“Giv­en the lim­it­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties to ex­pand with­in Trinidad, PPG­PL has had a long­stand­ing strat­e­gy of try­ing to di­ver­si­fy its ge­o­graph­i­cal foot­print and se­cure busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties out­side of the coun­try.”

“This strat­e­gy re­sult­ed in the past in­vest­ments in gas trad­ing and trans­port in the Unit­ed States, and now this op­por­tu­ni­ty in Guyana.”

Dri­ver stressed that the con­tract re­lates on­ly to op­er­at­ing and main­tain­ing the fa­cil­i­ty.

“Once fi­nalised, this con­tract will be to op­er­ate and main­tain the fa­cil­i­ty, in part­ner­ship with a lo­cal Guyanese com­pa­ny.”

“The fa­cil­i­ty will pro­duce LPG (‘cook­ing gas’) for the Guyana mar­ket, cur­rent­ly ser­viced by im­ports, and al­so to ex­port LPG to neigh­bour­ing coun­tries.”

He stat­ed that the mar­ket­ing of LPG re­mains the sub­ject of a sep­a­rate process.

“The op­er­a­tions and main­te­nance con­tract does not in­clude the mar­ket­ing of the LPG be­ing pro­duced, which is a sep­a­rate con­tract still un­der con­sid­er­a­tion by the Gov­ern­ment of Guyana.”

Dri­ver said the award re­flects broad­er ef­forts to di­ver­si­fy T&T’s ex­ports be­yond com­modi­ties.

“This con­tract should be seen in the con­text of the pol­i­cy to di­ver­si­fy Trinidad’s ex­ports away from com­modi­ties to oth­er ex­ports, in­clud­ing ser­vices.” He al­so point­ed to the im­por­tance of trans­fer­ring ex­per­tise to Guyanese work­ers.

“It is al­so im­por­tant to note that there will be a re­quire­ment on PPG­PL to trans­fer skills, knowl­edge, and ex­pe­ri­ence to Guyana as they im­ple­ment the con­tract.”

“There are many pri­vate-sec­tor Trinidad & To­ba­go ser­vice com­pa­nies that have ex­ist­ing part­ner­ships with Guyanese firms to ser­vice the en­er­gy sec­tor, the re­sult of long­stand­ing ef­forts by the Trinidad pri­vate sec­tor with the sup­port of the En­er­gy Cham­ber.”

“It is pos­i­tive to see a Trinidad state en­ter­prise al­so fol­low­ing this route.”

An en­er­gy con­sul­tant, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty de­scribed the se­lec­tion as a nat­ur­al ex­ten­sion of PPG­PL’s busi­ness de­vel­op­ment strat­e­gy.
“Well, it’s an ex­pan­sion strat­e­gy, right, so it would be part of their busi­ness de­vel­op­ment growth strat­e­gy to ex­pand,” the con­sul­tant said.

The source not­ed that the project could cre­ate new rev­enue streams while en­hanc­ing the com­pa­ny’s rep­u­ta­tion across the re­gion.
“It would have been part of that strat­e­gy, plus it would al­so, I mean, it’s rev­enue-gen­er­at­ing for them. It could still gen­er­ate rev­enue for PPG­PL; it’s good for brand­ing pur­pos­es.
“I think it’s great that they were able to op­er­ate. I don’t know all the terms, if it’s with a part­ner, but at least even the fact that they called PPG­PL, I think it’s a good brand­ing for Trinidad and for PPG­PL.”
The con­sul­tant said the ul­ti­mate val­ue of the con­tract will de­pend on the com­mer­cial arrange­ments agreed be­tween the par­ties.
“It would be de­pen­dent on the terms that they would have agreed. You could get dif­fer­ent op­er­at­ing mod­els. You could just get an op­er­at­ing fee. They could op­er­ate it, and part of the fee could be that they get to mar­ket some of the prod­uct. I hon­est­ly don’t know what they would agree.”

Still, the con­sul­tant viewed the de­vel­op­ment as a pos­i­tive sign for re­gion­al busi­ness growth.
“I think it is a good thing. It shows growth in the Caribbean re­gion as well.”

The Guyana op­por­tu­ni­ty comes as PPG­PL con­tin­ues to con­tribute sig­nif­i­cant­ly to earn­ings at TTNGL. The com­pa­ny, which owns 39 per cent of TTNGL, re­port­ed af­ter-tax prof­it of $32.1 mil­lion for the three months end­ed March 31, 2026, up 0.94 per cent from $31.8 mil­lion in the cor­re­spond­ing pe­ri­od of 2025.

Chair­man Ger­ald Ramdeen said stronger re­turns from PPG­PL helped im­prove the com­pa­ny’s per­for­mance.

“This im­prove­ment was dri­ven by high­er nat­ur­al gas liq­uids sales vol­umes as a re­sult of a draw on in­ven­to­ry, en­hanced NGL con­tent in the nat­ur­al gas stream, and up­lifts from pru­dent cost man­age­ment in all ar­eas de­signed to en­hance mar­gins and prof­itabil­i­ty,” Ramdeen stat­ed.

He in­di­cat­ed that high­er sales vol­umes were par­tial­ly off­set by low­er liq­uids pro­duc­tion from gas pro­cess­ing op­er­a­tions, which de­clined by 11.5 per cent, as well as low­er recog­nised Mont Belvieu prod­uct prices that av­er­aged 15.8 per cent be­low lev­els record­ed a year ear­li­er.