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Redman wrote:
And if allyuh feel is legal fees where the goodly senator was making money allyuh wrong.
Real Estate is King.
rfari wrote:Kamala: we gonna built a cause way into chaguaramas.
This is new and exciting
A new 1,500-mile network of highways, rails and oil pipelines will run through one of the world’s most dangerous regions, Pakistan’s volatile Balochistan province.
China / Pakistan
Chinese president Xi Jinping visits Islamabad this week, where he will sign agreements to spend almost $46 billion on energy and infrastructure projects to be built along an “economic corridor” between Kashgar in China’s western province of Xinjiang and Pakistan’s Gwadar Port, soon to be operated by a Chinese state-owned firm.
The new 3,000 km (1,500 mile) network of highways, rails, and oil pipelines will give China quicker access to Europe and the Middle East, lessening Pakistan’s dependence on its few existing and overwhelmed ports. But there’s a catch: the route runs through one of the world’s most dangerous regions, Pakistan’s volatile Balochistan province, home to an insurgency that dates back decades and the site of near-daily fatal violence, including attacks on police, suicide bombings, and jailbreaks.
A STUDY of highway construction costs in eight European countries highlights Austria as the most expensive.
The report says that highways in Austria cost €12.87 million/km. The next most expensive country is Hungary
at €11.21 million/km, followed by Slovakia at €9.56 million/km and then the Czech Republic at €8.86 million/km. At the other end of the spectrum, costs in Denmark are only €5.89 million/km, in Croatia €6.682 million/km, in Slovenia €7.29 million/km and in Germany €8.24 million/km.
Terrain can increase costs significantly and construction of highways in mountainous terrain is most expensive in Germany at €25.99 million/km followed by Austria with €24.97 million/km, with the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Croatia following in descending order.
pete wrote:Btw, the cost to build the highway is 5billion, the other two was land acquisition.
pete wrote:Btw, the cost to build the highway is 5billion, the other two was land acquisition.
Shell CEO coming to T&T
Published:
Monday, April 20, 2015
Ben van Beurden, Group CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, will be in T&T on Wednesday as part of visits to key countries in the region that form part of the recently announced £47 billion proposed combination of Royal Dutch Shell and BG Group. During his brief stopover in T&T, van Beurden will hold talks with Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s. The visit will be the first by a Shell CEO to T&T.
Plans for the visit were among matters discussed when the prime minister had a 30-minute courtesy call with Shell Trinidad Limited country chairman Luis Prado and Minister of Energy and Energy Affairs Kevin Ramnarine at her Parliament office on Friday. Last week, Persad-Bissessar said T&T had been given an assurance that the Royal Dutch Shell Company would continue to invest in the country’s energy sector.
She told the Summit of the Americas chief executive officers conference in Panama she had been given the assurance by van Beurden on the same day of the acquisition earlier this month. The deal will give Shell access to the most exciting deepwater oil projects in the world, while adding BG Group’s fast-growing liquefied natural gas (LNG) business to make Shell the undisputed world leader in LNG.
The combination will also set Shell on the path to unseat Exxon Mobil as the world’s biggest oil company. Once the proposed energy mega merger is finalised, Shell will become the largest player in T&T’s LNG industry and the majority shareholder in Atlantic LNG which has a rated production capacity of nearly 15 million tonnes per annum of LNG.
Shell will also take over a key role in the exploitation of the natural gas in the Loran/Manatee field that straddles the maritime zones of T&T and Venezuela in the Columbus Channel. Loran/Manatee is estimated to hold 10.25 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves. Shell is poised to inherit the 50 per cent stake in the 2.69 trillion cubic feet earmarked for T&T.
Van Beurden, who became CEO of Royal Dutch Shell on January 1, 2014, joined the company in 1983, after graduating with a Master’s Degree in Chemical Engineering from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. His career in Shell spans both upstream and downstream activities and he has held a number of operational and commercial roles, including some ten years in the LNG business, and a variety of positions in downstream.
In January 2005, van Beurden became vice president, Manufacturing Excellence, based in Houston, USA. In this role he was responsible for standards in operational excellence and high-performance initiatives in refining and chemicals manufacturing. In December 2006, he was appointed executive vice president, Chemicals, based in London, UK.
During his tenure in the role, van Beurden was appointed to the boards of a number of leading industry associations including the International Council of Chemicals Associations and the European Chemical Industry Council.
http://www.guardian.co.tt/business/2015 ... -coming-tt
Ravi Balgobin Maharaj wrote:Commencement of Hunger Strike
As you may be aware, at the beginning of this week I presented Dr. Keith Rowley, Leader of the Opposition, the opportunity to declare his role and responsibility with regards to the affair which led to the birth of an illegitimate son. He has since failed to acknowledge or respond to my request within the time afforded to him and as such, I will hold true to my word and commence my hunger-strike from 10:00 a.m tomorrow morning, Thursday 22nd April 2015, in front of the entrance to Parliament at the International Waterfront Complex.
I personally feel it has become necessary to take such action, not only due to this current scandal in which Dr. Rowley has become embroiled, but because of how easily and comfortably he has been allowed to evade responsibility for a host of other such matters in the past five years. The fact remains that each member of Parliament, whether they sit on the government bench or the opposition, are elected officials who were appointed to serve the citizens of this nation. As such, they should ALL be held accountable for their actions in an equal and unbiased manner. But for some reason, the opposition seems to be immune from any scrutiny or perlustration, even though they all swore the same oath as the Members of Parliament who sit opposite them.
It is ridiculous to the point of becoming obscene to think that a man offering himself as a Prime Ministerial candidate can be allowed to prevaricate statements for as long as he has been doing without any consequence. For each of the following accusations, he has been allowed to deflect them without further probe or catechism; something that no one sitting in government would have able to accomplish:
Las Alturas - I was not involved;
Landate - I was not involved;
Emailgate - I found the documents iny mailbox;
David West - I was not asked;
Ravina Rampersad - She was one who wined on me.
But in my own humble opinion, the matter surrounding Garth Alleyne is the most indicative of Dr. Rowley’s character, for if a man cannot take responsibility for his own offspring, how can we expect him to lead a country responsibly? It is with this in mind that I will be holding my hunger-strike in protest of his continued attempts to sweep this matter under the rug, and it will continue until such time as he presents the public with the facts surrounding this entire matter.
I have never argued against holding the government responsible for their actions, but the opposition should be held to the same standards. The fact that they were not able to secure a majority of seat should not lessen their responsibilities or their accountability to the people who elected them to Parliament. On Friday, I am sure that every single Opposition MP will be on hand to debate the Motion of No Confidence against the Minister of Finance, and these are the same people who refuse to participate in the same motion of censure against Dr. Rowley. But how will that reflect on the PNM should the matter be vetoed, as it was in previous censure motion against the Prime Minister. They claim the current one is unconventional and reformist, but such is the action of liberal governments; while their own is lofty and grandiloquent, but lacks any real substance. I ask you though, which of these two is the greater and the lesser, if both will undoubtedly share the same eventual result?
Best regards,
Ravi Maharaj
De Dragon wrote:"Good ideas are common, what's uncommon are people who'll work hard enough to bring them about"
Ashleigh Brilliant
If you kept an idea in your cacahole for donkey years, it is of precious little use to us isn't it?
shotta 20 wrote:De Dragon wrote:"Good ideas are common, what's uncommon are people who'll work hard enough to bring them about"
Ashleigh Brilliant
If you kept an idea in your cacahole for donkey years, it is of precious little use to us isn't it?
Same thing I saying De Drag.. That's where PNM keep their ideas and plans.
Shell's CEO meets with PM
By the Multimedia Desk
Story Created: Apr 22, 2015 at 4:40 PM ECT
Story Updated: Apr 22, 2015 at 5:03 PM ECT
Statement from the Office of the Prime Minister -
Royal Dutch Shell plc today gave a firm commitment to continued investment in this country’s energy sector, and a stronger, reinforced partnership with Trinidad and Tobago.
The assurance was given during a meeting between Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar with the CEO of Shell Group of Companies, Mr. Ben Van Beurden on Wednesday at the Diplomatic Centre in Port of Spain. This visit is Mr Van Beurden’s first to the region and western hemisphere following Shell’s announcement of its proposed combination with the BG group two weeks ago.
Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar recognized the important role that Shell plays in this country’s energy sector, and the opportunities for future investments that can be created arising out of the merger with BG Group.
“We have geared our economy to be able to adapt and compete in a global environment, and we are very excited about the possibilities that an enhanced relationship with Shell will bring to Trinidad and Tobago,” Mrs Persad-Bissessar said. “There are certainly great opportunities for us in terms of deep water exploration.”
Van Beurden noted that Trinidad and Tobago is a key market and area of focus area for the company. “The Trinidad and Tobago market is a wonderful fit in terms of complementary portfolios,” Van Beurden said.
The Shell CEO commended Trinidad and Tobago’s “strong and consistent” investment climate.
The Prime Minister proposed the establishment of a joint Ministry of Energy / Ministry of Finance committee to engage BP, BG and Shell in order to order to examine new strategies for the LNG industry.
In noting Shell’s status as a shareholder in Atlantic, Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar expressed confidence in continuing investments in the exploration and production of oil and natural gas, and gave the Government’s commitment to continued engagement with stakeholders to further enhance the sector’s competitiveness.
The delegation from Shell Group of Companies included Shell Trinidad Limited Country Chairman, Luis Prado, Shell Executive Vice President, Government Relations, John Crocker, and Shell Trinidad Government Relations and Communications Advisor, Mark Regis.
Senator the Honourable Kevin Ramnarine, Minister of Energy and Energy Affairs,
Senator the Honourable Larry Howai, Minister of Finance and the Economy, and Senator the Honourable Vasant Bharath, Minister of Trade, Industry, Investment and Communications were also in attendance. Mr Selwyn Lashley, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Energy and Energy Affairs was also present.
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/She ... 73691.html
[b][/b]Nidco president: Why Gov’t stopped Rapid Rail after paying consultants $500m
Aleem Khan
Published:
Thursday, November 1, 2012
National Infrastructure Development Company (Nidco) president Dr Carson Charles has explained why the Government stopped the controversial rapid rail project after paying $500 million to French consultants.
Speaking about “the crazy project called the Trinidad Rapid Rail that the Leader of the Opposition (Dr Keith Rowley) said he would like to see executed,” Charles said he “thought that must be a statement made (by Rowley) out of ignorance, and some information could be shared on that.”
He said, “A decision was taken to implement a rapid rail project here. No feasibility study was done. In other words, nobody knew what it would cost, but a decision was taken to do it.
A contract was awarded to a company to do it, (a) design-build-operate-and-maintain contract. All it was lacking was the finance package, and you could call it a public private partnership (PPP) project, but it was lacking the finance package.
PPPs normally involve financing, so the Government would have had to find the finance, but it was a design-build-operate-and-maintain contract (that) was awarded to a consortium called the TriniTrain consortium, major partner, a French firm called Bouygues, and the consultants selected to execute the project (was also) a French firm.
“In fact, there were two consultant firms, both foreign. So the consultants are foreign, the design-build-operate-and-maintain contractor is foreign (French) and they are reporting directly to the president of Nidco,” he said. Charles said there was “no engineer involved from this country,” no planner, no economist. “None of the professionals from this country (were) involved at all,” he said. “The reporting is from the consultant to the president of Nidco, who reports to a Cabinet committee on it. When I took over here at Nidco, I inherited this. So the consultant came to report to me in 2010.”
Charles, who spoke to the Business Guardian on October 10, asked rhetorically, “What are the facts of the project? The project is based in phases. At the end of Phase I of the project, in which the design-build-operate-maintain contractor is required to carry out all his designs, his investigations. He did all of his surveys an so on, his geo-technical work, etcetera. He did the design of the cars as the elements for the trains. He did a tremendous amount of work. He presented this work to Nidco, both in hard copy and also in electronic form. It’s a tremendous amount of work we have stored here now.”
He said at the end of phase I, the consultant “came to find out if he had permission to go to Phase II. Phase II involves construction in which he would actually begin to construct the rail system, bring in the cars.” Charles said, “Phase I cost us over $500 million. Remember, a feasibility has not yet been done, and that’s designs. So you spend $500 million doing investigations and designs, but you haven’t done a feasibility yet, and you don’t know what the cost of the project is. How do you find out the cost of the project?
“At the end of phase I, he (the consultant) tells us what the cost of the project is, and this project, his figure is US$7 billion. That’s about $46 or so billion. It makes the San Fernando-Point Fortin highway look like child’s play because the Point Fortin highway is $7.5 billion. This is about $46 billion, plus the cost of acquisitions, and all other consultancy fees that (were) not even counted; management fees and so on.
“All of these have to be counted still, plus, this was also going through the port. So you have to relocate the Port of Port-of-Spain, and if you didn’t relocate the port, the consultant said then you could run the rail through the port, but it would be elevated, so more money.
“In other words, we talking about somewhere between $50 billion to $60 billion, at least, for this project. That’s what I mean by a project we can’t afford. So we paid them the half a billion. We paid them the $500 million. We had no choice because they did the work already, but you know, we can’t use any of the information. It’s just sitting there. If anybody wants it, they can come and contact Nidco and they will get some information on geo-technical investigation and they will get something on rail cars, but we can’t use information on rail cars, can we? To build anything else?”
TriniTrain Consortium
In response to calls by the Opposition to re-tender, he said, “The contract was already awarded. It was a design-build-operate-maintain contract to a TriniTrain consortium. It’s a consortium that is quite capable, quite reputable. They are quite capable of doing all the stages, including building the trains and operating them and maintaining them.
“They were given a contract to do all of it, but the contract was phased, so at the end of phase I, you could decide if you should proceed to phase II or not. Although we had spent about $500 million, we knew we couldn’t find $60 billion, so we had to say no to Phase II. There was no need to re-tender, or to go out for tender because you (the previous administration) already awarded the contract.
“Of course, you could have decided that you want to take all the designs and go out to tender for somebody else besides that, but you (the previous administration) already awarded the contract. Why would you do that? You already chose the contractor that you want to build it. So I don’t understand. I think he (Rowley) is mistaken. I think he was misinformed. That’s the only explanation I could imagine for what he said. That this is really the worst example that you could possibly choose.”
Charles said, “It’s not that we can’t have rails, you know, or we can’t have a train system, you know. That’s the point I want to make. It’s not that we can’t have it, but this particular one, obviously, couldn’t be done. What you could have decided was to do a feasibility study first, which would tell you what kind of rail system you really want to introduce here. For example, our geo-technicals, the contractor said, are really bad, our soils are really difficult soils, even in that area for a train, because the train requires very heavy foundations, so that added to the cost.
“If you were to do light rail, you wouldn’t have that problem. So you could design a lighter rail system. You could use a more limited area and you could get something within your affordability. So we can have trains in the country, but we couldn’t have that project. We couldn’t have that rapid rail project.”
http://www.guardian.co.tt/business-guar ... onsultants
This what the PM said about taking ideas, shortly before she announced the causeway.shotta 20 wrote:De Dragon wrote:"Good ideas are common, what's uncommon are people who'll work hard enough to bring them about"
Ashleigh Brilliant
If you kept an idea in your cacahole for donkey years, it is of precious little use to us isn't it?
Same thing I saying De Drag.. That's where PNM keep their ideas and plans.
However, addressing United National Congress supporters at Fyzabad Secondary School, Siparia Old Road, Fyzabad on Monday night, the Prime Minister said Rowley’s plans also included bringing back “the rejected Vision 2020 by calling it vision 2030.”
http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/print,0,210040.html
Habit7 wrote:This what the PM said about taking ideas, shortly before she announced the causeway.shotta 20 wrote:De Dragon wrote:"Good ideas are common, what's uncommon are people who'll work hard enough to bring them about"
Ashleigh Brilliant
If you kept an idea in your cacahole for donkey years, it is of precious little use to us isn't it?
Same thing I saying De Drag.. That's where PNM keep their ideas and plans.However, addressing United National Congress supporters at Fyzabad Secondary School, Siparia Old Road, Fyzabad on Monday night, the Prime Minister said Rowley’s plans also included bringing back “the rejected Vision 2020 by calling it vision 2030.”
http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/print,0,210040.html
You cant chide Dr. Rowley for using Vision 2020 which still remains the clearest charted course for TT, then use another govt idea without citing credit. She is contradicting herself.
PNM proposed the causeway in 2009 and was voted out in 2010. The PP boosts about the boardwalk while not acknowledging the traffic nightmare they created. The PNM foresaw the need for the causeway first before major development. Nevertheless, whichever govt builds it would be for the benefit of our nation.
Habit7 wrote:This what the PM said about taking ideas, shortly before she announced the causeway.shotta 20 wrote:De Dragon wrote:"Good ideas are common, what's uncommon are people who'll work hard enough to bring them about"
Ashleigh Brilliant
If you kept an idea in your cacahole for donkey years, it is of precious little use to us isn't it?
Same thing I saying De Drag.. That's where PNM keep their ideas and plans.However, addressing United National Congress supporters at Fyzabad Secondary School, Siparia Old Road, Fyzabad on Monday night, the Prime Minister said Rowley’s plans also included bringing back “the rejected Vision 2020 by calling it vision 2030.”
http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/print,0,210040.html
Would be nice to have a depoliticized source of developmental ideas for the country that would be detached from whoever is in power.
You cant chide Dr. Rowley for using Vision 2020 which still remains the clearest charted course for TT, then use another govt idea without citing credit. She is contradicting herself.
PNM proposed the causeway in 2009 and was voted out in 2010. The PP boosts about the boardwalk while not acknowledging the traffic nightmare they created. The PNM foresaw the need for the causeway first before major development. Nevertheless, whichever govt builds it would be for the benefit of our nation.
mrtrini45 wrote:Correction
Promises
Never
Materialize
Thats P.N.M
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