When the new board of directors took the reins of Trinidad and Tobago’s National Gas Company (NGC) in July 2025, the state-owned energy firm was in critical financial disrepair. Six months later, what once looked like a failing enterprise has emerged as one of the country’s fastest-rotating revenue wheels, capping 2025 with the strongest full-year financial results the company has recorded in more than 10 years.
The game-changing results were officially unveiled this week at a presentation of NGC’s 2025 summary consolidated financial statements, held at Port of Spain’s Hyatt Regency Trinidad, where NGC Chairman Gerald Ramdeen walked stakeholders through the dramatic reversal of fortune. For the 12 months ending December 31, 2025, the company posted a $3.46 billion profit after tax – a 111% jump from the $1.64 billion profit recorded in 2024. Key performance metrics across the board also saw remarkable improvement: return on assets doubled from 4% to 8%, while return on equity climbed from 7% to 13% as the company strengthened its balance sheet with higher total assets, expanded equity reserves, increased cash holdings and a reduced gearing ratio. Adjusted EBITDA margin hit a solid 24%, reflecting broad-based operational improvement alongside the financial rebound.
Ramdeen detailed the combination of aggressive structural reforms and targeted operational fixes that delivered the rapid turnaround. When the new leadership stepped in, annual operating expenses hit $1.7 billion – nearly matching the entire $1.6 billion annual profit the company had generated the year prior, creating an unsustainable financial model that left the company essentially broken. Within just six months, the new board cut more than $500 million in annual operating expenses, establishing a far leaner, more efficient operating base that Ramdeen says will deliver recurring annual benefits for years to come.
Beyond cost cutting, the company overhauled its financial and commercial practices to address long-standing mismanagement. A 24-inch cross-country pipeline, which had sat idle for four and a half years and cost the country an estimated $1.5 billion in lost revenue, was fully repaired within six months of the new board taking office. Leadership also tightened foreign exchange and credit policies, ending a more than two-year informal overdraft of over US$100 million extended to a private downstream customer. That customer had previously paid for gas in Trinidad and Tobago dollars, even as NGC was forced to purchase that same supply from upstream providers in US dollars – an arrangement that created constant currency pressure on the company’s balance sheet, a practice Ramdeen confirmed has been permanently ended.
The turnaround effort also benefited from unprecedented cross-government collaboration, Ramdeen noted. Close coordination between NGC, the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries, the Ministry of Finance, and the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago cleared regulatory and financial bottlenecks that had hampered progress for years. “The synergy that exists today between the different departments of Government, the regulator of the financial system and the Ministry of Energy is like nothing that has ever been done before in this country,” Ramdeen told attendees.
Ramdeen added that the company also shifted its recruitment strategy to bring in new leadership aligned with the firm’s updated strategic vision, a change that helped rebuild commercial and operational momentum across the entire natural gas value chain. He attributed the strong 2025 results to three core drivers: higher revenue from natural gas, liquefied natural gas (LNG), and natural gas liquids (NGL) operations; deep structural cost containment; and positive valuation adjustments for the company’s asset base. “The year marked a transformation in how the group created and protected value, allocated capital and managed performance,” he said.
Far from viewing the turnaround as a finished project, Ramdeen framed the 2025 results as just the first step in a broader expansion strategy that will reposition NGC as a fully integrated energy player across the entire value chain. For decades, NGC has operated primarily as a midstream gas firm focused on transporting and processing natural gas. Under the new vision, the company will build a major presence across upstream exploration and production, retain its core midstream operations, and expand into downstream energy markets.
The ultimate goal, Ramdeen said, is to reestablish NGC as the leading energy company not only in Trinidad and Tobago, but across the Caribbean and Latin America – a target the leadership intends to hit within its current term. The company is already on the cusp of major strategic decisions that will reshape the country’s energy sector for coming generations, he added, with plans to solidify NGC’s position as the country’s top contributor to government revenue. “We have only started; the work has just begun,” Ramdeen said.