With new agree­ments signed be­tween T&T and Venezuela on use of their shared off­shore gas as­sets, the gov­ern­ments of both coun­tries are now work­ing to­ward quick op­er­a­tional start-up of the Lo­ran-Man­a­tee Field for ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion.

The agree­ments, which rep­re­sent a deep­en­ing of bi­lat­er­al co-op­er­a­tion on en­er­gy mat­ters, are the Uni­ti­sa­tion Agree­ment for the Ex­ploita­tion and De­vel­op­ment of Hy­dro­car­bon Reser­voirs of the Man­akin-Cocuina Field which ex­tends across the de­lim­i­ta­tion line be­tween T&T and Venezuela and the Frame­work Agree­ment on En­er­gy Sec­tor Co-op­er­a­tion.

"The agree­ment for joint ex­ploita­tion of nat­ur­al gas de­posits that we have on our off­shore bor­der is win, win," said Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicholas Maduro, short­ly af­ter sign­ing off on the agree­ments at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre on Port-of-Spain on Tues­day af­ter­noon.Maduro said Venezuela'S state-owned en­er­gy com­pa­ny, PDVSA, will restart the sale of oil and as­phalt to Petrotrin's re­fin­ery. In ad­di­tion, Venezuela will buy equip­ment and pipe for nat­ur­al gas dis­tri­b­u­tion un­der terms of the ac­cords.

"I dare say that these agree­ments form part of an in­te­gral diplo­ma­cy that we are con­struct­ing in the Caribbean re­gion," he said.Lo­ran�Man­a­tee is a nat­ur­al gas field lo­cat­ed on the con­ti­nen­tal shelf of the Caribbean Sea. It was dis­cov­ered in 1983, be­gan pro­duc­tion in 2013 and pro­duces nat­ur­al gas and con­den­sates. The to­tal proven re­serves of the field are around 10.25 tril­lion cu­bic feet (293 km3), and pro­duc­tion is pro­ject­ed to be around 750 mil­lion cu­bic feet/day (21,4�106m3) in 2018.