Min­is­ter of En­er­gy Roodal Mooni­lal and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of En­er­gy Ernesto Ke­sar yes­ter­day held dis­cus­sions with a del­e­ga­tion from the Unit­ed States Em­bassy in Port of Spain, led by Mr Philip Kern, chargé d’af­faires.

The meet­ing took place on Mon­day at the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries’ In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Com­plex head of­fice, Port-of-Spain.

The meet­ing reaf­firmed the strong bi­lat­er­al re­la­tion­ship be­tween T&T and the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, with dis­cus­sions fo­cus­ing on po­lit­i­cal co­op­er­a­tion, en­er­gy and eco­nom­ic se­cu­ri­ty and trade and in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties.

Kern not­ed that the cur­rent re­la­tion­ship be­tween both coun­tries present a unique mo­ment in the his­to­ry of bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions, with both coun­tries shar­ing sev­er­al sig­nif­i­cant ar­eas of mu­tu­al ben­e­fit and con­sid­er­able op­por­tu­ni­ties for fur­ther co­op­er­a­tion.

Mooni­lal reaf­firmed the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to main­tain­ing an open, con­struc­tive and ac­ces­si­ble part­ner­ship with the Unit­ed States, built on di­a­logue, co­op­er­a­tion and the ex­change of ideas. He not­ed that this ap­proach re­flects the Gov­ern­ment’s broad­er com­mit­ment to in­ter­na­tion­al en­gage­ment un­der the lead­er­ship of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

In a news re­lease, the Min­istry of En­er­gy said the dis­cus­sions al­so cov­ered re­cent­ly signed Mem­o­ran­dums of Un­der­stand­ing for the pro­posed de­vel­op­ment of da­ta cen­tres and a steel plant in Trinidad and To­ba­go, which forms part of the Gov­ern­ment’s wider na­tion­al re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion pro­gramme.

Mooni­lal un­der­scored the Gov­ern­ment’s fo­cus on re­vi­tal­is­ing the en­er­gy sec­tor through in­creased ex­plo­ration, pro­duc­tion and val­ue-added ac­tiv­i­ties. He re­it­er­at­ed that T&T re­mains open to re­spon­si­ble in­vest­ment to boost oil and nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion, im­prove pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, en­hance oil re­cov­ery, sup­port in­vest­ment in the restart of the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery and ex­pand down­stream de­vel­op­ment.

Rep­re­sent­ing the Min­istry at the meet­ing were Karin­sa Tulsie, per­ma­nent sec­re­tary (Ag), Ava Ma­habir-Dass, per­ma­nent sec­re­tary (Ag) and Sheena Go­sine, en­er­gy re­la­tions and in­ter­na­tion­al af­fairs ad­vi­sor to the Min­is­ter were in at­ten­dance along with Jef­frey Cern­yar, eco­nom­ic unit chief at the US Em­bassy in Port-of-Spain.

Both par­ties reaf­firmed their com­mit­ment to con­tin­ued di­a­logue and col­lab­o­ra­tion in ad­vanc­ing shared ob­jec­tives in en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty, trade, in­vest­ment and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment.