Quick summary: Woodside Energy agreed on 6 August 2026 to sell its 70 per cent operated interest in Trinidad and Tobago's Calypso deepwater gas project to bp, eight days after flagging impairment losses of US$160 million to US$200 million covering Calypso and other items. bp returns to 100 per cent, the position it held in 2011. No investment decision, capital cost or first-gas date has been published.
BY LA CARIBEÑA NEWS · 8 AUGUST 2026
Fifteen months ago, Trinidad and Tobago's Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries published a note on a meeting with Woodside Energy. The company had just agreed to sell its Greater Angostura assets, and the Ministry wanted the record to show that this was not a retreat.
Woodside, the release said, "remains committed to pursuing opportunities in Trinidad and Tobago as demonstrated by the ongoing work in the Calypso field with its joint venture partner, bpTT." Energy Minister Roodal Moonilal "reiterated Government's interest in the pursuit of projects such as Calypso as a priority." The meeting was held on 27 May 2025 and published two days later.
On 29 July 2026, Woodside told the market it expected impairment losses of US$160 million to US$200 million relating to the Calypso Project and other items, and that it had been assessing "Calypso's relative value within Woodside's portfolio." Eight days after that, on 6 August, it agreed to sell the project to bp and leave the country.
What is bp actually buying?
Woodside is selling its 70 per cent operated interest in production sharing contract TTDAA 14, the Calypso Project. bp holds the remaining 30 per cent and will move to 100 per cent and take over as operator, according to bp's announcement and Woodside's.
This is a reversion rather than an entry. bp was awarded Blocks 23(a) and TTDAA 14 outright in July 2011 in a deepwater competitive bid round, at 100 per cent working interest. BHP Billiton farmed in for 70 per cent and operatorship in June 2014, leaving bp on 30 per cent, and Woodside inherited that 70 per cent when it merged with BHP's petroleum business in June 2022. bp is buying back what it originally held.
Woodside disclosed that the consideration comprises "both cash consideration and contingent payments". Neither company published an amount. bp's release does not mention consideration at all. Neither release states an economic effective date, and neither names the specific approvals required beyond "government and regulatory approvals". Completion is expected by the end of 2026.
Woodside filed the announcement in its media-releases series rather than its numbered ASX announcements, and had made no securities filing on the divestment as of 8 August 2026. It did not treat the sale as price-sensitive.
Why did Woodside leave?
The company's own filings track Calypso moving backwards for four years.
At Woodside's investor briefing on 1 December 2022, Calypso was listed among projects "targeting FID ready 2023" and described as Trinidad and Tobago's largest undeveloped discovered resource, carrying 3.2 trillion cubic feet gross 2C. Concept select work finished in the first half of 2023 and pre-front-end engineering design began in the second half.
By July 2025, Woodside reported that the joint venture was conducting concept select engineering studies, a stage it had already completed two years earlier. At its Capital Markets Day on 5 November 2025, Calypso appeared under "portfolio management" and was excluded from the company's post-2030 capital assumptions. Woodside's annual reserves statement of 17 February 2026 gave Calypso no standalone disclosure, folding it into an aggregate "International" line with Trion and Sangomar, with contingent resources only and no booked reserves.
Woodside's full-year 2025 results announcement of 24 February 2026 does not mention Calypso. Neither does the results briefing transcript.
Guidance on the size of the resource moved in one direction. Woodside's last published figure was 3.2 trillion cubic feet gross 2C in December 2022. In July 2024, then chief executive Meg O'Neill told a quarterly briefing that "the scope and scale of Calypso is a much smaller asset, as we've said in the past, two to three TCF." The figure of about 3.5 trillion cubic feet now circulating in trade coverage of the sale appears in neither the bp nor the Woodside announcement, and no report attributes it to a named source.
Woodside had already stopped producing in the country. It reported nil Trinidad and Tobago output in the first and second quarters of 2026, against 2,205 thousand barrels of oil equivalent of pipeline gas and 93 thousand barrels of oil in the second quarter of 2025. The Greater Angostura sale to Perenco completed on 11 July 2025. Calypso is the second and final exit.
Who is on each side of the table?
bp's chief executive is Meg O'Neill, appointed with effect from 1 April 2026. She was chief executive of Woodside Energy from April 2021 until December 2025, the period across which Calypso was moved from an FID target to portfolio management.
Neither company put her forward on this transaction. bp quoted Gordon Birrell, its executive vice president for upstream, who said that "by building on the strengths of our existing operations and infrastructure, we have the potential to unlock new production and support long-term growth in the region." Woodside quoted chief executive Liz Westcott, who said completion "will conclude Woodside's decades-long presence in Trinidad and Tobago."
Birrell's sentence is conditional. It describes potential, not a commitment to develop.
Does this give Trinidad gas this decade?
Nothing published with the transaction says so. There is no final investment decision, no capital cost, no development concept and no first-gas date. Calypso sits roughly 220 kilometres off Trinidad in about 2,100 metres of water, on Woodside's current figures, and has never reached FID in the eight years since the Bongos-2 discovery well encountered hydrocarbons in 2018.
The backdrop is a gas position under pressure. Natural gas production averaged 2,436.3 million cubic feet a day in the fourth quarter of 2025 on the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago's figures, which it takes from the Ministry of Energy. Output fell 8.6 per cent year on year across October and November 2025, a decline the Central Bank attributes in its May 2026 monetary policy report to "maintenance activity undertaken by key upstream producers" rather than to depletion. The longer arc sits in the Bank's own statistical handbook: production peaked in 2010, and the ratio of proved reserves to production fell from 36 years in 2000 to nine years by 2010.
The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited (NGC) has resisted the shortage framing. When Methanex decided in June 2026 to idle its Titan methanol plant indefinitely, NGC said that "gas supply volumes were not the issue", that it had offered Methanex the same contracted volume as under the expiring contract and was willing to consider an increase, and that Methanex had advised "the principal consideration was the commercial pricing arrangement."
The projects scheduled to lift supply from 2027 are Ginger, Mento, Coconut, Manatee, Aphrodite and Cypre. Calypso is not among them.
Elsewhere in the basin the drill bit is still finding gas. Petrobras has made a third Caribbean Sea discovery off Colombia. Trinidad's problem is not that the region has run out of gas. It is that the gas Trinidad can count on is not in Trinidad.
That is why Port of Spain has spent two years looking east. Trinidad has asked Guyana for crude and then for gas since February 2024, and Guyana has declined both while signing energy agreements with Jamaica and the Dominican Republic.
NGC published one item in August 2026. It came on 7 August, the day after the Calypso announcement, and it was about Manatee: the Commissioner of State Lands vested in NGC the freehold title to the land under the Beachfield gas processing facility at Guayaguayare, which will receive gas from the Manatee field under NGC's agreement with Shell Trinidad. The release said the vesting "allows the Manatee Project to proceed without delay."
What has Trinidad's government said about the sale?
Nothing that this newspaper can find. The Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries' media releases index carries no item on the transaction and ends at 25 May 2026. No statement from The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited (NGC) has been published, and no comment from the Office of the Prime Minister has appeared.
One question is worth putting directly. Woodside's own project page and its 2025 annual report both describe Calypso as spanning Block 23(a) and TTDAA 14. Both announcements of 6 August name only TTDAA 14. Neither company has explained the difference. Trade reporting from February 2025 indicated that improved fiscal terms agreed with the government involved unitising the two adjacent blocks, which would account for it, but no company statement confirms that.
Woodside's 2025 annual report records only that "improved fiscal terms were secured with the Government of Trinidad and Tobago" during the year. Those terms were secured in 2025. The company impaired the asset and sold it in 2026.
Fiscal terms are the lever producer states in the region have been pulling in opposite directions. Trinidad improved Woodside's and lost the operator anyway. Guyana holds a 2 per cent royalty on Stabroek against the 6.25 per cent Suriname signed on the block next door, and has kept its terms while attracting the capital.
The data on the title card
- Woodside interest sold: 70 per cent, operated, production sharing contract TTDAA 14. Source: Woodside media release, 6 August 2026.
- bp position after completion: 100 per cent and operator, from 30 per cent. Source: bp press release, 6 August 2026.
- bp's original position: 100 per cent of Blocks 23(a) and TTDAA 14, awarded July 2011.
- Consideration: cash plus contingent payments, amount not disclosed by either party.
- Impairment guidance: US$160 million to US$200 million, Calypso Project and other items, flagged 29 July 2026.
- Days between impairment guidance and sale announcement: 8.
- Woodside resource guidance: 3.2 trillion cubic feet gross 2C, December 2022; "two to three TCF", chief executive, July 2024.
- Discovery: Bongos-2, spudded 22 July 2018, water depth 1,910 metres.
- Years from discovery to exit without FID: 8.
- Trinidad natural gas production, fourth quarter 2025: 2,436.3 million cubic feet a day. Source: Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago Economic DataPack, March 2026.
- Year-on-year change, October to November 2025: down 8.6 per cent, attributed by the Central Bank to upstream maintenance.
- Proved reserves to production ratio: 36 years in 2000, nine years by 2010. Source: Central Bank Handbook of Key Economic and Financial Statistics.
- Expected completion: end of 2026, subject to government and regulatory approvals.
Frequently Asked Questions
What did bp agree to buy from Woodside?
bp agreed to acquire Woodside's 70 per cent operated interest in production sharing contract TTDAA 14, the Calypso deepwater gas project offshore Trinidad and Tobago. bp already held 30 per cent and will move to 100 per cent and become operator. Completion is expected by the end of 2026, subject to government and regulatory approvals.
How much is bp paying for Calypso?
Neither company has disclosed the amount. Woodside stated that the consideration comprises cash and contingent payments. bp's announcement does not mention consideration. No economic effective date has been published by either party.
Has Calypso reached a final investment decision?
No. The project has not reached FID in the eight years since the Bongos-2 discovery well in 2018. Woodside listed it as targeting FID readiness in 2023, then reverted to earlier-stage concept select engineering studies by July 2025 and placed it under portfolio management in November 2025.
Will Calypso ease Trinidad's gas supply position?
Nothing published with the transaction commits to that. There is no development concept, capital cost or first-gas date. The projects scheduled to lift Trinidad's supply from 2027 are Ginger, Mento, Coconut, Manatee, Aphrodite and Cypre, and Calypso is not among them. Trinidad's gas production averaged 2,436.3 million cubic feet a day in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Has the Trinidad and Tobago government responded to the sale?
On the public record this newspaper can find, no. The Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries has published no statement on the transaction, and none has come from NGC or the Office of the Prime Minister.