JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Saturday, May 24, 2025

En­er­gy Min­is­ter on reim­posed US sanc­tions on Venezuela:

No impact on Dragon gas

by

401 days ago
20240418
Energy Minister Stuart Young, left, meets Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro on December 21, 2023 at Miraflores Palace, Caracas, Venezuela before the signing of the 30-year licence from the Venezuelan government.

Energy Minister Stuart Young, left, meets Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro on December 21, 2023 at Miraflores Palace, Caracas, Venezuela before the signing of the 30-year licence from the Venezuelan government.

T&T’s Min­istry of En­er­gy said yes­ter­day that the de­ci­sion by the US gov­ern­ment to reim­pose sanc­tions on Venezuela’s oil and gas sec­tor does not af­fect the spe­cial amend­ed li­cence that was is­sued to the Gov­ern­ment of T&T on Oc­to­ber 17, 2023.

That li­cence, which was is­sued by the Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC) of the US De­part­ment of Trea­sury, au­tho­ris­es the T&T Gov­ern­ment, state-owned Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC), Shell PLC and their af­fil­i­ates to con­duct busi­ness with the Gov­ern­ment of Venezuela and its state-owned en­er­gy com­pa­ny, Petróleos de Venezuela SA, bet­ter known as PDVSA.

The state­ment by the Min­istry of En­er­gy came hours af­ter an an­nounce­ment from Wash­ing­ton DC that the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion reim­posed en­er­gy sanc­tions on Venezuela.

The US gov­ern­ment’s ac­tion is be­ing seen as an at­tempt to pun­ish Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro’s at­tempts to con­sol­i­date his rule just six months af­ter the US eased re­stric­tions in a bid to sup­port now fad­ing hopes for a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic open­ing in the OPEC na­tion.

A se­nior US of­fi­cial, dis­cussing the de­ci­sion with re­porters, said any US com­pa­ny in­vest­ing in Venezuela would have 45 days to wind down op­er­a­tions to avoid adding un­cer­tain­ty to glob­al en­er­gy mar­kets. The of­fi­cial spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to dis­cuss US pol­i­cy de­lib­er­a­tions.

In Oc­to­ber, the US grant­ed Maduro’s gov­ern­ment re­lief from sanc­tions on its state-run oil, gas and min­ing sec­tors af­ter it agreed to work with mem­bers of the op­po­si­tion to hold a free and com­pet­i­tive pres­i­den­tial elec­tion this year.

While Maduro went on to sched­ule an elec­tion for Ju­ly and in­vite in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers to mon­i­tor vot­ing, his in­ner cir­cle has used the rul­ing par­ty’s to­tal con­trol over Venezuela’s in­sti­tu­tions to un­der­mine the agree­ment. Ac­tions in­clude block­ing his main ri­val, ex law­mak­er Maria Co­ri­na Macha­do, from reg­is­ter­ing her can­di­da­cy or that of a des­ig­nat­ed al­ter­na­tive. Nu­mer­ous gov­ern­ment crit­ics have al­so been jailed over the past six months, in­clud­ing sev­er­al of Macha­do’s aides.

Yes­ter­day’s ac­tions es­sen­tial­ly re­turn US pol­i­cy to what it was pri­or to the agree­ment ham­mered out in Bar­ba­dos, mak­ing it il­le­gal for US com­pa­nies to do busi­ness with state-run oil pro­duc­er Petróleos de Venezuela SA, bet­ter known as PDVSA, with­out a spe­cif­ic li­cense from the US Trea­sury De­part­ment.

In a news re­lease, the Min­istry of En­er­gy not­ed that the spe­cif­ic, amend­ed OFAC li­cence is­sued to T&T last Oc­to­ber is valid un­til Oc­to­ber 31, 2025, and it per­mits Shell, NGC and con­trac­tors to con­tin­ue the works be­ing un­der­tak­en to ex­plore, pro­duce and ex­port nat­ur­al gas from the Drag­on gas field.

In the news re­lease, En­er­gy Min­is­ter, Stu­art Young re­mind­ed the pop­u­la­tion that T&T se­cured a 30-year ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion li­cence from Venezuela gov­ern­ment for the Drag­on gas field on De­cem­ber 21, 2023.

He said the work to ex­plore, pro­duce and ex­port the nat­ur­al gas from Drag­on to T&T is con­tin­u­ing. (with files from AP)


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored