Capitalising on 100 Years of Energy Services - The Trinidad & Tobago Dynamic

Mr. David Borde
Managing Director
PetroCom Technologies

On February 4th 2009, Mr. David Borde was the feature speaker at the eTeck Energry Workshop Programme in the Trinidad & Tobago Petroleum Conference 2009. The topics discussed were: Capitalising on Human Resource Potential, Capitalising on the Local Technology Dynamic and Capitalising on ICT clustering Opportunities.

Mr. David Borde, Managing Director of PetroCom Technologies Limited, one of the leading firms in Trinidad and Tobago that provides Exploration and Production Data optimization services and which forms part of the expanding TSL Group, brings with him over 20 years experience in the oil and gas industry as an oil company explorationist and in the service sector where he focused on new technologies in the fields of geophysics, geology, prospect generation and reservoir analysis. Over the years David developed global strategic alliances with oil and gas majors, national oil companies, independent oil companies, and technology providers.

Mr. Borde brought with him a panel of dynamic speakers from the upstream and downstream energy sectors as well as the ICT industry, who gave an in-depth look at the ever-present possibilities for important linkages and networking opportunities between the ICT and energy industries.

Capitalising on 100 years of Energy Services - The Trinidad Dynamic

A hundred years of energy related activities positions the Trinidad and Tobago Energy Sector strategically to become a noteworthy, advanced technology service provider to the country, region and global markets. During this 100 year period, Trinidad and Tobago contributed in many significant ways to numerous oil and gas technological advances as well as research and development in several specialty fields. As we look at key disciplines on which the energy services sector is built, we observe that we have developed a compelling knowledge base in many areas such as drilling, geology, geophysics, biostratigraphy, petroleum and reservoir engineering, completion methods, well logging, production technologies, gas optimization and downstream technologies that span refining, ammonia and methanol technologies.

We have extensively developed and honed our human resources knowledge base which can be marketed once packaged effectively. Further, this knowledge base is based on a healthy mix of local and global experience. For our size population, we have more than our fair share of energy experts. Our challenge is to harness this "energy knowledge" to advance work done by oil and gas operators as well as make us more competitive and a stronger global player.

eTeck and the Tamana InTech Park are strategically positioned to enable the foundation and advancement of these multiple potential opportunities. The eTeck infrastructure, ICT vision and access to a flow of graduates from UTT located at Tamana InTech Park and UWI set the stage. Additionally, the e TecK cluster model will be a main feature at the workshop to show how the facility can increase:

Local and international company productivity
Local and international company's potential to expand / build a service portfolio
Earning potential
Potential for lucrative joint ventures
R&D opportunities using our own local university capabilities

This workshop and related meetings like this will enable all of us to advance the concept to make it reality. It is an opportunity for our government, private sector and higher education institutions to demonstrate how much more we can achieve through collaboration and a shared vision.

Our extensive natural resource history positions us to develop high level energy and non-energy services with business opportunities that greatly increase the local value chain. This will broaden Trinidad & Tobago's economic base and enhance the benefits to the country at large while encompassing a greater section of the work population through new opportunities in the private sector and shores beyond. As nationals, we are now better prepared to advance in key areas such as strategic planning, specialty energy technology services, ICT, data management, specialty engineering, technology marketing, business development, global sales and alliance partnering. The data, information and knowledge base that we acquired over the last 100 years will allow us to capitalize on our energy history and human resource capabilities as we set the foundation in place for the next 100 years!