An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter of Grena­da Dick­on Mitchell is open to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s an­nounce­ment that T&T in­tends to deep­en and strength­en the co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the two coun­tries in hy­dro­car­bon ex­plo­ration and de­vel­op­ment.

Guyana’s Vice Pres­i­dent, Dr. Bhar­rat Jagdeo, said he will re­peat what was said be­fore this coun­try’s gen­er­al elec­tion last month that, right now, from their gas to en­er­gy project, there is no gas to sup­ply to any­one, but he is will­ing to meet with the gov­ern­ment.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­struct­ed En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal to seek out new sources of oil and gas for the coun­try from Grena­da, Guyana, and Suri­name.

Last Thurs­day, dur­ing a post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence, the Prime Min­is­ter said the gov­ern­ment wants to pur­sue the Grena­da gas ini­tia­tive to en­sure re­sources with­in the re­gion are op­ti­mal­ly de­vel­oped for the ben­e­fit of T&T and the re­gion.

She al­so spoke about the es­tab­lish­ment of a so­lar pho­to­volta­ic pow­er plant in Suri­name by T&T’s Na­tion­al En­er­gy and the fea­si­bil­i­ty as­sess­ment of a cross-bor­der sub­sea pipeline from Trinidad to Suri­name by way of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC). Na­tion­al En­er­gy is a sub­sidiary of NGC.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian, Prime Min­is­ter Mitchell said his gov­ern­ment has al­ways been of the view that Grena­da stands to ben­e­fit from co­op­er­a­tion with T&T in this field.

“We al­so recog­nise that in the present in­ter­na­tion­al eco­nom­ic en­vi­ron­ment, Trinidad too, stands to ben­e­fit from co­op­er­a­tion with Grena­da in this field. The Prime Min­is­ter has in­di­cat­ed that she in­tends to send her Min­is­ter of En­er­gy to Grena­da soon to hold talks with us. We are ea­ger­ly look­ing for­ward to his vis­it,” said Mitchell.

At a news con­fer­ence last Thurs­day, Guyana’s Vice Pres­i­dent, Dr. Bhar­rat Jagdeo, when asked by a re­porter to re­spond to the PM’s state­ment on do­ing en­er­gy busi­ness with Guyana, ex­plained in de­tail what the plans are for his coun­try’s gas re­serves.

“We need all of the gas there for our elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion and the fer­tilis­er plant, that there is a project that we have not ap­proved as yet that is be­ing ex­plored be­tween Ful­crum LNG and Exxon­Mo­bil and the Gov­ern­ment of Guyana to de­vel­op the gas re­serves. They’re ex­plor­ing sev­er­al op­tions as to what to do with this gas. One it’s to do LNG and ex­port LNG.”

“Two could be to bring the gas on shore for gen­er­a­tion of pow­er, just to sell to Brazil. Three, to bring the gas on shore for in­dus­tri­al­i­sa­tion in Guyana, or a com­bi­na­tion of all three, if there is ad­e­quate gas. I said if T&T is in­ter­est­ed, then the tri­par­tite arrange­ment, Exxon­Mo­bil, Ful­crum LNG and the Gov­ern­ment of Guyana would have to ex­am­ine whether tak­ing the gas to T&T out­weighs those oth­er op­tions in terms of fi­nan­cial fea­si­bil­i­ty,” Jagdeo dis­closed.

Last week, Dr Mooni­lal told Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian that, based on re­ports he re­ceived from the en­er­gy stake­hold­ers, he would make di­rect con­tact with his coun­ter­parts at the Min­istries of En­er­gy or Min­er­al Re­sources, as the case may be, in the three ter­ri­to­ries of Grena­da, Guyana, and Suri­name.

Speak­ing about Grena­da, Mooni­lal­said, “We are aware that the project ran in­to some trou­ble sev­er­al years ago, but T&T is in a po­si­tion where sure­ly, we can as­sist giv­en the great in­ter­est we have in do­ing busi­ness in the gas-based in­dus­tries and the close­ness of Grena­da to us both phys­i­cal­ly and from a Cari­com part­ner per­spec­tive,” the min­is­ter out­lined.

Whether it’s fea­si­ble

For­mer En­er­gy Min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan said, in 2012, the US Ge­o­log­i­cal Sur­vey high­light­ed the Caribbean’s hy­dro­car­bon po­ten­tial—from the North Cu­ba Basin to the Guyana-Suri­name Basin—draw­ing in­creased in­ter­na­tion­al in­vest­ment in­ter­est. How­ev­er, she said not all iden­ti­fied hy­dro­car­bon de­posits are tech­ni­cal­ly or com­mer­cial­ly vi­able.

In an­tic­i­pa­tion of shared re­serves, Seep­er­sad-Bachan said Grena­da and T&T signed a mar­itime bound­ary de­lim­i­ta­tion treaty in 2010 over the To­ba­go Trough.

She said a frame­work agree­ment for en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion fol­lowed, ini­ti­at­ed by dis­cus­sions be­tween both then prime min­is­ters.

“Yet, as of May 2025, no cross-bor­der hy­dro­car­bon fields or uni­ti­sa­tion agree­ments ex­ist be­tween the coun­tries.”

Seep­er­sad-Bachan out­lined that Grena­da has since pur­sued off­shore hy­dro­car­bon de­vel­op­ment through pro­duc­tion shar­ing con­tracts (PSCs) and ex­plo­ration li­cences with in­ter­na­tion­al firms, in­clud­ing Glob­al Pe­tro­le­um Group and Ocean­gate Oil and Gas En­gi­neer­ing.

“While the 2017 Nut­meg-2 well showed ear­ly signs of hy­dro­car­bons, it was plugged with­out test­ing, and no reser­voirs have yet been de­fined as com­mer­cial­ly vi­able. Lim­it­ed da­ta ac­cess and on­go­ing con­tract re­views have stalled any tran­si­tion to de­vel­op­ment. As such, Grena­da can­not be viewed as a near-term so­lu­tion to T&T’s gas sup­ply short­fall,” she de­tailed.

In Suri­name, the en­er­gy ex­pert said there are promis­ing gas finds in Blocks 52 and 58 that are un­der ap­praisal, with the ear­li­est pro­duc­tion ex­pect­ed by 2031.

“Float­ing LNG and joint gas de­vel­op­ment with Guyana—whose east­ern Stabroek Block bor­ders Suri­name’s dis­cov­er­ies—are be­ing ex­plored. Ex­port­ing gas to Trinidad is tech­ni­cal­ly fea­si­ble, but sub­sea pipeline in­fra­struc­ture would be cost-pro­hib­i­tive. Gas-based petro­chem­i­cals from Trinidad may strug­gle to com­pete with US prod­ucts giv­en new U.S. tar­iffs and ris­ing do­mes­tic pro­duc­tion,” she added.

Ex­plore op­por­tu­ni­ties

Econ­o­mist Dr Ronald Ramkissoon said it is use­ful to ex­plore pos­si­bil­i­ties in both ar­eas of fos­sil fu­els, nat­ur­al gas and crude oil, as well as in ar­eas like so­lar and al­ter­na­tive sources of en­er­gy.

“I think in the short term, as well as in the medi­um to long term, it is use­ful at this point to ex­plore what­ev­er av­enues there are, be­cause we do need nat­ur­al gas to help with the in­creased pro­duc­tion of petro­chem­i­cals.”

Delv­ing fur­ther in­to the top­ic, Ramkissoon does not be­lieve that the gov­ern­ment should rule out the pos­si­bil­i­ties that might still lie with Venezuela.

“I think we have to learn how to man­age the geopol­i­tics in a way that we can ben­e­fit from wher­ev­er the re­sources are, whether that be nat­ur­al re­sources or whether that be for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment. We need to be very strate­gic in the way we think about the in­ter­ests of T&T,” he added.

At her swear­ing in on May 1, Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad Bisses­sar said that the Drag­on gas deal was dead, fol­low­ing the re­vo­ca­tion of this coun­try’s OFAC li­cence.

In a re­but­tal, for­mer Prime Min­is­ter and En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said the Drag­on deal has decades left to dance.

Young said, “Un­der­stand that when you im­me­di­ate­ly say the Drag­on is dead, what are you telling Shell? I am cer­tain that in the board­rooms to­day, in Lon­don and Hous­ton, there is a deep analy­sis go­ing on. Every­thing that you say as a coun­try leader is not for do­mes­tic pol­i­tics alone, and that is a sim­ple cau­tion.”

“It is very ir­re­spon­si­ble for any gov­ern­ment gov­ern­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go, want­i­ng what is best for Trinidad and To­ba­go, with­out even look­ing at the doc­u­men­ta­tion that ex­ists to im­me­di­ate­ly de­clare it dead. The truth is we have a 30-year li­cence with Venezuela,” he added.