[IPSM] The Most Destructive Development on Earth: Coming to Trinidad and Tobago?

[Macdonald Stainsby]

The Most Destructive Development on Earth: Coming to Trinidad and Tobago?
By Macdonald Stainsby

Sunday, May 16, 2010
ZNet Communications.

The twin-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, while politically a
parliamentary democracy, is in essence a petro-state; overwhelmingly
dominated by oil & gas production economically has led to certain
characteristics politically. Dependence on oil is as much of a mainstay as
the sun in this, the richest of the Caribbean nations (on a GDP average;
the country has vast poverty beside wealth). The forms of hydrocarbon
recovery that are being tested and exploited around the world in an era of
declining oil reserves are getting more and more drastic and often, more
destructive -- as we currently bear witness to the carnage in the Gulf of
Mexico.



Trinidad & Tobago -- with a population base today of less than 1.3 million
people -- reached its peak in oil production in 1978 at 230 000 barrels of
oil a day. It is now producing less than 150 thousand barrels, despite
ever expanding deep sea oil exploration and extraction, at greater and
greater cost (economic and environmental), along side deeper and deeper
well construction on land. Rough estimates are that there are
approximately 2 billion barrels of oil left in T & T territory. Though
still in possession of large, untapped natural gas reserves, the
inevitable economic collapse of the country -- which has artificially
pegged it's TT dollar at roughly 6 to one US dollar -- has led this
country to explore possible other sources of revenues. PetroCaribe, an
initiative of the Bolivarian Government of Venezuela, has also pushed
aside Trinidad and Tobago as the main supplier of oil to the Caribbean
nations that make the island chain all the way up to Cuba. Trinidad is
losing supply, and Trinidad has lost their guaranteed market. T & T does
have one, almost untouched resource of hydrocarbons left: Tar sands
bitumen, almost identical in formation to the deposits being mined in the
Athabasca region of Alberta, Canada -- except in most areas, considerably
shallower (and therefore easier to access). These reserves are also
estimated at roughly 2 billion barrels of bitumen, the raw building block
of ultra heavy oil that is mixed with sands and silts in the ground. Such
a development, the government would argue, effectively doubles their
remaining reserves.



While investigations into possible mining of the tar sands deposits in the
Parrylands/Guapo area in the Southwestern region of Trinidad are not new
-- some documents make reference to the idea as far back as 1996 --
several more recent developments beg for a deeper understanding of what is
at stake with such proposals for the entire nation of Trinidad and Tobago,
so the people of the Twin Island Nation can make an informed decision. In
February of 2009, Minister of Energy Conrad Enill announced that the
bitumen should be extracted using Canada's experience as a model. That
“model” is rapidly becoming the most contentious development on the
planet; It is already the largest industrial project in human history and
developers seek to sacrifice an area slightly larger than England to
create a synthetic oil out of extracted bitumen.



When one mines bitumen and then creates a synthetic, 'mock' oil out of the
sandy, sticky deposits, the process in a short nutshell is this: Clearcut
everything on top of the deposit. Drain off all the water and marsh lands
over top. Remove all soil above the bitumen (the industry term for this
soil is “overburden”). Scoop out the bitumen, carry it off to something
called a slurry, where high velocity spinning of the bitumen sands with
extremely high volumes of extremely hot water separate the bitumen from
the remaining sands and clays. This uses (on average) four barrels of
water for each one barrel of oil it can produce; it also digs up roughly
two tons of earth for that same one barrel of oil. Energy used to heat the
water for separation is usually high volumes of natural gas. This is
usually about one-third the equivalent of the energy produced in one
barrel of oil (average conventional crude still found commonly in the
world today is more than ten times that, some is far greater still). After
this is completed, the used up water is disposed of in giant, concrete
built holding pens called tailings ponds. This toxic waste water -- loaded
with Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons [PAH's], mercury, cadmium, and many
other immune-system attacking heavy metals -- cannot be treated and
instead at current rates will take 600 years to settle into something that
can be partially returned to the water table. All of this (before one
burns it in a car, plane or tractor) has already produced roughly three
times the C02 of conventional oil. Only coal is currently a dirtier fuel
that is in common use. This does not include that major deforestation also
accelerates climate change, as does water loss.



Minister Enill also stated: "What is contemplated here is that Petrotrin
will joint venture with a partner we have identified. The partner brings
to the table the technology, the information, the understanding and that
exercise will tell us what we do not now know about that particular
resource. Once we know that we then have to make an investment decision as
to whether we move forward or not," but this in itself might lend one a
belief that bitumen is not being extracted yet. But, in fact, bitumen is
already being extracted. This press conference was one where the
exploration license for mining specifically was being given over to
Petrotrin, the state owned energy company. There is another very
destructive way one can carry out tar sands bitumen production. This is
called “In-situ”, or “in place”. This method is used in areas where the
bitumen reserve is simply too deep to mine (in Canada, some of the mines
are up to 200 feet deep). The technology of “Steam Assisted Gravity
Drainage” [Sag-D] is growing rapidly and is in use in more places than
just Canada.



“The same technology is actually already being tried out in Trinidad by US
firm New Horizon Exploration, in collaboration with State company,
Petrotrin, in the Parrylands area in south Trinidad [...]” writes the
Energy Caribbean magazine (2006/7), an industry-based report. Quick
explanation of Sag-D: it does not use giant mines, but instead many large
platforms where there would be one small platform for conventional oil --
it also uses twice the energy and twice the water on average as compared
to the mining procedure and leaves that toxic water inside the earth where
it may well get into the ground water supply.



In Trinidad water is already a scarce resource and during the recent
drought water systems to many homes were intermittently shut off. In
short, it is worse for climate change and worse for water than the mining
described earlier. Both mining and Sag-D projects have become much, much
more economical in recent years -- even continuing to make money during
the lowest points that oil dipped to on global markets in the last year.
Some procedures have even gone under $20 US a barrel in costs. Some
analysts are projecting that global oil prices will go back up to $100 a
barrel or more in the near future. From a peak oil perspective of
increased demand with dwindling supply, this would seem a near certainty.



The areas near where the Guapo Oilsands Quarries exist -- tar sands are
used as a means to make cheap pavement for roads throughout Trinidad and
Tobago, especially in small villages that have only existed for the last
20 years or so -- are populated in the thousands. Rapidly worsening health
of populations living near the giant mines in Canada is already strongly
suspected to be from many of the adverse effects of tar sands extraction
processes. Fish have visible deformities and contain astronomically high
mercury levels while some moose have arsenic in their flesh some 400 times
a safe limit to eat. Cancers, heart diseases and auto-immune disorders are
escalating in human populations who live downstream of the rivers adjacent
to the mines.



One of the first responses that Trinidadians have made to the possibility
of developing the tar sands is that there is no realistic fresh water
source -- however, extremely close to the existing bitumen deposits the
government of T & T is building a desalinization plant for sea water. It
is not good for human consumption but it is effective in separating sand
from bitumen. Another question is of natural gas for the needed energy,
also to separate the bitumen from sands, clays and silts. There is a very
large power plant with natural gas as its power source being constructed
in the area. Yet another dispute is that the roads may have a hard time
accommodating the heavy equipment to carry out the process. The government
of T & T is promising the construction of a highway to Point Fortin, the
main industry town of the area that is both nearby and already contains a
large refinery (the refinery in Pointe-à-Pierre  north of the
Parrylands/Guapo region & near San Fernando has undergone recent expensive
upgrades). This is not to propose that all or even any of these associated
developments are definitively being built to allow tar sands mining and
exploitation -- the point is that since they are being built, that further
amplifies probability and reduces costs from an overhead economic costs
perspective. However, the clearest statements come straight from Petrotrin
itself.



The announcement from Minister Enill came last year. However, Petrotrin
has been involved in a joint venture with Western Oil of Canada (Alberta,
to be precise, and recently bought by the Canadian subsidiary of Marathon
Oil). The following has been on their website since well before the
announcement of February 13, 2009:



Tar Sand Opportunities:

 PETROTRIN controls considerable, easily accessible tar-sand reserves
presenting good opportunity for joint-venture development. Presently
involved with Western Oil of Canada in mining the tar-sands.



If that isn't clear enough, Malcolm Jones the former executive chairman of
Petrotrin stated in 2006 “the government is engaging in drafting and
eventually enacting new legislation that will facilitate the exploitation
of tar sands.” as quoted in the same Energy Caribbean magazine mentioned
earlier in regards to SagD production. The unsigned article goes on to
state: “Western Oil Sands of Alberta has been working with Petrotrin on
oil sands prospects in the Parrylands/Guapo area of South Trinidad for
some time but the local legislative framework needs to be appropriate for
it to go ahead with a major feasibility study.” That license, at least so
far as exploration and the sharing of technology with Canadian experts who
have worked in the Albian Sands Muskeg River Mine in Alberta strip mining
for bitumen is now in place.



If this disturbs you, all is far from lost. No major licenses for
construction or extraction beyond the experimental SagD and the
exploratory mining permits exist. Yes, the government appears to be both
quietly trying to facilitate this, and there is interest in helping
Petrotrin take on this most destructive form of development yet from
Canadian and American energy companies. But that alone does not make
mining inevitable. The People’s National Movement (PNM) government  of
Trinidad and Tobago has been pushing a highly controversial (and
polluting) aluminium smelter for decades; the combined power of the people
in the exact same region as the bitumen deposits has forced the government
to renege on the approval of the Alutrint smelter. That smelter went
through far more stages of development and permits and assessments (and
even land clearing) than the tar sands plans have. The stage is set, so to
speak: Now may be a great time to act if Trinibagonians want no tar sands
development in T & T. To enter the fray before -- and not after -- the
wheels get any further momentum will raise their costs and greatly
heighten the chances of a victory for the communities who would be
directly impacted. The time is good and the time may indeed be now --
before the price of oil goes back up. Trinidad and Tobago is small; the
area that contains bitumen deposits in Canada is itself 14 times larger
than the entire Twin Island Nation.



There is also the global impact of tar sands development. There are more
than enough reasons without the climate change arguments for any community
to reject this form of development. However, there is something else to
note. Canada is the only country that signed the Kyoto protocol to
formally withdraw from the agreement on greenhouse gas emissions. During
the COP15 talks in Denmark last December, Canada was also singled out as
the nation who should be shamed for blocking any real progress towards
collective global action at the international level around the climate
change crisis. Canada is, in a word, being tarred by the tar sands and
deservedly so. The world now seeks a new, just and realistic response to
climate change and the recent peoples summit held in Cochabamba &
Tiquipaya, Bolivia at the end of April was a forum where social movements
primarily from the Global South started to collectively do just that.



Canada is globally being put on trial due to the tar sands operations --
and the historically excluded peoples from around the world are speaking
to the future in a way that has not been seen before. Climate change is
now the primary agenda of history. As social movements seek to find ways
to deal with climate change around the planet people are looking for
something that helps identify what the problem is. Tar sands represents a
turning point: do we make needed changes or deepen and hard wire
dependence on fossil fuels?



Globally, we are wedded to oil. Something as disastrous as tar sands
development is all about trying to maintain that problem, not solve it or
move away from it. Those who resist tar sands speak to a world where new
solutions are sought. The world has been given a glimpse of the
destruction of offshore oil and gas development with the BP disaster. BP
has already installed many massive platforms around the south of Trinidad.
Yet tar sands strip mining and In Situ 'oil' development may be the only
form even more dangerous and destructive.



The ability to have automatic global allies and friends who will help stop
tar sands development in Trinidad and Tobago is not to be underestimated.
Activists all over Europe have begun to target Canada for crimes against
the climate -- and therefore, crimes against small island nations that
will soon become memories, lost underwater like the legend of Atlantis.
Trinidadians may indeed have two choices in front of them -- to defend
both themselves and the planet by resisting tar sands development, or to
allow the government and Petrotrin to invite Canada and the United States
to help bring a contribution from Trinidad to slide ever further down the
wrong hill of the climate crisis. No one can tell Trinidad and Tobago what
to do -- but Trinis have every right to know what their own government and
their Canadian friends have not told them. Or, as a local Trinidadian
wrote last year in a letter to the editor responding to minister Conrad
Enill's announcement of February 13, 2009:



“Will Trinidad become one of the most toxic places on earth based on
toxicity per square mile? Consider the aluminium plant being built in the
southeast, with all the environmental problems to be expected there. We
are on a roller coaster downhill. Toxic, I believe, in terms of
environmental hazards, and toxic because of the murders, and kidnappings
added on. It just cannot be oil at any price. [....]



The world has been looking on these tar sands operations, environmental
groups from around the world are becoming active on it. We read headlines
that say 'Alberta to shake its image problems', that oil sands seen as a
threat to birds, that the groups are seeking court rulings against the
operators[....]” -- Desmond Smith (writing to the Trinidad Express).







Macdonald Stainsby is a social justice activist, writer, journalist and
professional hitchhiker looking for a ride to the better world. He is the
coordinator of the website http://oilsandstruth.org and can be reached at
mstainsby [at] resist.ca.

http://www.zcommunications.org/the-most-destructive-development-on-earth-coming-to-trinidad-and-tobago-by-macdonald-stainsby


--
Macdonald Stainsby
Co-ordinator,
http://oilsandstruth.org
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In the contradiction lies the hope.
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