The first quarter of 2025 is not yet complete and it has already been a tumultuous year in terms of energy and moreover, energy transition.
Geopolitical tensions, business resets and changes in government policy have changed the landscape of the global energy sector drastically.
On the first day of Donald Trump’s presidency, he declared a national energy emergency, challenging oil and gas companies to "drill baby, drill."
Months later, in its 2025 capital markets update, energy giant bp announced plans to cut its annual energy transition spending by more than US$5 billion and increase oil and gas investment to around US$10 billion a year.
TT, which has more than a century of experience in the energy sector, and is one of the areas where companies such as bp and Shell have explored and produced oil and gas for years, can be affected by these changing tides.
Bp in particular showed that it had big plans for TT as it cited several wells in its province for gas production. However, the same geopolitical and business changes that could affect the oil and gas industry could also have a significant impact on TT.
Energy companies fuel oil and gas sectors
In bp’s capital markets update in February, chief financial officer Kate Thompson pointed out its strategy for the short term, through 2027.
It was part of an overall "reset" of the company to boost earnings and improve investor confidence.
The reset plan comes on the heels of news of a 35 per cent decline in profits, as reported by international media on February 11.
The company experienced a drop in profits to US$8.9 billion, with the fourth quarter profits plummeting to under US$2 billion, the lowest it's been since the fourth quarter of 2020.
Thompson said bp plans to set its capital expenditure (capex) between US$13 and US$15 billion a year, with an average of around US$10 billion going to oil and gas investments.
She said the oil and gas capex will have a 70-30 per cent split, with oil exploration and production seeing the lion’s share of the investment.
The investment would reduce to around US$8.5 billion per year in investment from 2025 to 2027.
The oil and gas investment is a 20 per cent increase.
She added that energy transition capex will be in the range of $1.5 to $2 billion per year from 2026 to 2027.
CEO Murray Auchincloss said the company plans to pursue fewer and higher returning opportunities in energy transition, cutting investment by more than US$5 billion a year.
[caption id="attachment_1142613" align="alignnone" width="1024"] A worker installing a pipe as part of bpTT's Ocelot project to replace some 13 kilometres of new pipeline. - Photo courtesy bpTT[/caption]
He added the company has no plans for further acquisition in the energy transition.
In its plans for growing upstream, bp admitted that it had not invested enough in its oil and gas business and its exploration success hasn’t been the best.
It has made 40 discoveries, with TT, Egypt and the Gulf of Mexico among the sites for its discoveries over the pas
