Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Stu­art Young hopes to re­turn to Cara­cas, Venezuela, in a few weeks to con­tin­ue dis­cus­sions on the Drag­on Gas Field deal.

Speak­ing at yes­ter­day’s post-Cab­i­net press brief­ing at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre hours af­ter re­turn­ing from sim­i­lar dis­cus­sions in Cara­cas, Young said a del­e­ga­tion of ex­perts will ac­com­pa­ny him to con­tin­ue those dis­cus­sions.

“I would hope­ful­ly be lead­ing a team and a del­e­ga­tion of ex­perts and tech­ni­cal per­sons in three weeks’ time, the sec­ond week of March, back to Cara­cas for us to con­tin­ue those con­ver­sa­tions and ne­go­ti­a­tions that are set on the right path­way for us to be able to joint­ly de­vel­op the Drag­on Gas Field and hope­ful­ly bring that gas in­to pro­duc­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go, as well as in Venezuela,” Young said.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced on Jan­u­ary 24 that the Unit­ed States had waived en­er­gy sanc­tions against Venezuela via an Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC) waiv­er, paving the way for T&T to de­vel­op the PDVSA-owned Drag­on Gas Field.

Young said yes­ter­day that he had just re­turned from his sec­ond vis­it to Venezuela since T&T was pro­vid­ed with the OFAC waiv­er. The waiv­er was grant­ed for a two-year pe­ri­od.

He was asked if there was the pos­si­bil­i­ty of T&T be­ing left in the rain on the Drag­on Gas Field deal when the waiv­er ex­pires, for in­stance, if glob­al oil and gas tur­moil changes for the bet­ter with an end to the Russ­ian in­va­sion of Ukraine and the US does not ex­tend the li­cence.

Say­ing US of­fi­cials had as­sured him this would not be the case, Young said, “We are in con­tin­u­ous con­ver­sa­tion with (the) US Trea­sury and OFAC and we don’t see that as an is­sue. In fact, in the con­ver­sa­tion that I had had with the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials on the day, the morn­ing that they were go­ing to an­nounce the OFAC li­cence, this was one of the main dis­cus­sion points be­tween us and we are en­ti­tled to ap­ply for re­newals et cetera and they said do not wor­ry be­cause this is the longest we can grant. We see that you’ve ap­plied for a 10-year and whilst we are pre­pared to con­sid­er, un­for­tu­nate­ly, the OFAC doesn’t grant for a longer than two years.”

He added, “We have been in a part­ner­ship, for ex­am­ple, with Drag­on for quite a long time. We know the sit­u­a­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the ben­e­fits this can pro­vide. So no, the two-year ex­pi­ra­tion on the OFAC li­cence is not af­fect­ing what­so­ev­er our progress. It is pre­ma­ture to give any time­line and I’m cer­tain­ly not go­ing to give you any time­line at this stage as to when that gas comes to mar­ket.”

Lit­tle has been giv­en by way of de­tails on the pro­posed deal, sug­gest­ing the talks are not yet close to fi­nal­i­sa­tion.

Ear­li­er this month, Venezuela Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro al­so con­demned the de­ci­sion by the US to grant the waiv­er for the deal on the con­di­tion no funds be paid to Venezuela.

“They tell a coun­try it has per­mis­sion to ne­go­ti­ate with Venezuela, but it can­not pay in dol­lars or any form of cash. It must pay with food or prod­ucts,” Maduro said, adding “that is colo­nial­ism.”