RIA RAM­BAL­LY,

in Cara­cas

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Venezuela Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro yes­ter­day signed an his­toric gas deal here, which will al­low T&T ac­cess to gas re­serves from Venezuela's Drag­on Fields. Three agree­ments were signed but the de­tails were not re­vealed.

The agree­ments are the first of their kind and were signed at the Pres­i­den­tial Palace here in Cara­cas be­fore min­is­te­r­i­al and en­er­gy teams from both coun­tries.

In a brief state­ment fol­low­ing the sign­ing, Row­ley said yes­ter­day's de­vel­op­ment marks a com­mit­ment from both coun­tries to­wards the sig­nif­i­cant and nec­es­sary com­mer­cial de­vel­op­ment of the hy­dro-car­bon sec­tor.

Maduro thanked Row­ley for en­ter­ing in­to the agree­ment and said fi­nal­is­ing it will open doors to­wards the stair­cas­es of in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets and he looks for­ward to T&T climb­ing those stairs side by side with Venezuela.