GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

With the US gov­ern­ment re­vok­ing the li­cences for the Drag­on gas project, de­vel­op­men­tal econ­o­mist Dr Mar­lene Attzs is strong­ly ad­vis­ing that rather than sim­ply mourn the loss of the ini­tia­tive, T&T must use this mo­ment to re­think its eco­nom­ic fu­ture.

She told Guardian Me­dia that the de­ci­sion by the US presents an op­por­tu­ni­ty for T&T to build re­silience, to ac­cel­er­ate en­er­gy di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and to reimag­ine the eco­nom­ic mod­el that has long been hinged on fos­sil fu­el ex­ports.

“There is an ur­gent need to in­vest in lo­cal en­er­gy as­sets, es­pe­cial­ly with­in our own ex­clu­sive eco­nom­ic zone. Fields such as Man­a­tee, Men­to, Co­conut, and Gin­ger could pro­vide crit­i­cal buffers, but more im­por­tant­ly, they rep­re­sent steps to­ward en­er­gy in­de­pen­dence and se­cu­ri­ty,” she ex­plained.

Attzs, how­ev­er, ac­knowl­edged that the re­vo­ca­tion of US li­cences for the long-an­tic­i­pat­ed Drag­on and Cocuina-Man­akin gas projects marked a ma­jor set­back for T&T’s en­er­gy am­bi­tions. She out­lined that these projects were meant to de­liv­er much-need­ed nat­ur­al gas from Venezuela and help sta­bilise T&T’s de­clin­ing gas pro­duc­tion.

Now shelved in­def­i­nite­ly fol­low­ing a “not-un­ex­pect­ed” shift in US pol­i­cy, the col­lapse of these deals leaves a sig­nif­i­cant gap in this coun­try’s en­er­gy strat­e­gy at a time of mount­ing eco­nom­ic pres­sure, Attzs said.

Not­ing that while the im­me­di­ate im­pact is sober­ing—un­re­alised rev­enue and con­tin­ued pro­duc­tion de­cline- Attzs urged that this cri­sis must al­so be seen as a cat­a­lyst for trans­for­ma­tion. Warn­ing that the road ahead will not be easy, the se­nior econ­o­mist fur­ther stat­ed that the col­lapse of the Drag­on gas deal is just one symp­tom of a rapid­ly evolv­ing glob­al econ­o­my, marked by geopo­lit­i­cal shifts, un­cer­tain­ty and in­ten­si­fied com­pe­ti­tion among large coun­tries.

“These chang­ing con­di­tions will test the world, es­pe­cial­ly de­vel­op­ing coun­tries such as T&T and our Caribbean neigh­bours. As a na­tion, we must be­gin prepar­ing our­selves psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly and so­cial­ly for what lies ahead. This in­cludes man­ag­ing pub­lic ex­pec­ta­tions and fos­ter­ing a new, deep eco­nom­ic con­scious­ness among cit­i­zens,” Attzs said.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, she added the end of the deal can sig­nal the tran­si­tion from one chap­ter in T&T’s his­to­ry that fo­cused heav­i­ly on fos­sil fu­els to a new chap­ter that em­braces in­no­va­tion, sus­tain­abil­i­ty and hu­man cap­i­tal de­vel­op­ment. Mean­while, the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, which al­so pro­vid­ed com­ments on the failed Drag­on gas deal said it sup­port­ed the gov­ern­ment’s on­go­ing ef­forts to en­gage le­gal coun­sel in Wash­ing­ton, DC and to pur­sue the ap­pro­pri­ate chan­nels to ei­ther re­verse or amend the de­ci­sion.

Not­ing that this sit­u­a­tion is “a com­plex chal­lenge that re­quires steady diplo­ma­cy, con­sis­tent en­gage­ment, and above all, a coun­try-first ap­proach,” the cham­ber said it con­tin­ues to wel­come on­go­ing in­vest­ment in deep­wa­ter ex­plo­ration, sup­port ef­forts and en­cour­age fur­ther work in this area to bol­ster the coun­try’s en­er­gy port­fo­lio.

The cham­ber said it al­so con­tin­ues to ad­vo­cate for a di­verse econ­o­my par­tic­u­lar­ly in ser­vices, agro-pro­cess­ing, cul­tur­al and cre­ative in­dus­tries, as it em­pha­sised that these are crit­i­cal steps to en­sur­ing re­silience and com­pet­i­tive­ness in an in­creas­ing­ly dy­nam­ic glob­al en­vi­ron­ment.

Fur­ther, it called on the pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tors to work col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly to deep­en eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, un­lock new op­por­tu­ni­ties and chart a path for­ward.

“The cham­ber re­mains fo­cused on do­ing just that—part­ner­ing with our mem­bers, gov­ern­ment, and in­ter­na­tion­al al­lies to dri­ve sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic trans­for­ma­tion,” it added.

De­spite the col­lapse of the Drag­on gas deal, the gov­ern­ment has main­tained that Venezuela cross-bor­der gas is not the on­ly source of gas for this coun­try, not­ing that this is ev­i­denced by nu­mer­ous in­vest­ments cur­rent­ly be­ing car­ried out in T&T, in­clud­ing a new fron­tier in deep­wa­ter gas.