PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

Venezuela yes­ter­day grant­ed a 20-year nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion and ex­plo­ration li­cence for the cross-bor­der Cocuina gas field to multi­na­tion­al en­er­gy gi­ant BP and T&T’s whol­ly state-owned Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC).

In a sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny held in Cara­cas on yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and bpTT pres­i­dent David Camp­bell were on hand to sign the deal with Venezuela’s Min­is­ter of Peo­ple’s Pow­er for Oil, Pe­dro Tel­lechea. Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicholas Maduro was present to bear wit­ness to the sign­ing of the agree­ments.

In a brief ad­dress at the sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny, Young ex­pressed his thanks to Maduro for al­low­ing the deal to be fi­nalised.

“To­day is a great, a mon­u­men­tal and an his­toric day once again for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the peo­ple of Venezuela. To­day would not have hap­pened, with­out your bless­ings Mr. Pres­i­dent and for that we are grate­ful. I would like, through you Mr Pres­i­dent, to thank Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez, Min­is­ter Tel­lechea and the hard­work­ing team from Venezuela for mak­ing this mon­u­men­tal day hap­pen,” said Young, in the ad­dress which was tele­vised live in Venezuela.

In May 2024, the Unit­ed States Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC) grant­ed a spe­cif­ic li­cence for NGC, BP and the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad & To­ba­go to ne­go­ti­ate an agree­ment to de­vel­op the Man­akin-Cocuina field with the au­thor­i­ties in Venezuela.

At a news con­fer­ence in May an­nounc­ing OFAC’s grant­i­ng of the spe­cif­ic li­cense, Young con­firmed that li­cence would be valid un­til May 2026.

This came amid con­cerns fol­low­ing the ex­pi­ra­tion of OFAC Gen­er­al Li­cense 44, which au­tho­rised trans­ac­tions re­lat­ed to oil or gas sec­tor op­er­a­tions in Venezuela, on April 18 and prompt­ed con­cern that sev­er­al po­ten­tial en­er­gy deals in­volv­ing the South Amer­i­ca state would be de­railed.

How­ev­er, Young said yes­ter­day’s deal was a tes­ta­ment to the com­mit­ment shown by both T&T and Venezuela in the face of these chal­lenges.

“We have once again shown the world what hap­pens when two sis­ter coun­tries stand to­geth­er in the most dif­fi­cult of times and stand up for what we know is right and for two coun­tries’ sov­er­eign rights,” said Young.

“We will en­sure that the peo­ple of Venezuela and the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go ben­e­fit once again from this project. This is the first time that a li­cence has been grant­ed and an agree­ment has been signed for a cross-bor­der gas field com­ing six months af­ter the agree­ment to sign the li­cence for the Drag­on Field. “

He closed, ‘We sin­cere­ly thank you and give you the as­sur­ance that the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go will con­tin­ue to stand with the peo­ple of Venezuela.”

The 20-year nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion and ex­plo­ration deal will al­low for pro­duc­tion from the Cocuina gas field off the Venezue­lan coast. Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the Min­istry, 25 per cent of pro­duc­tion will sup­ply Trinidad’s petro­chem­i­cal sec­tor, while the bal­ance will feed the T&T’s LNG in­dus­try.

The field will re­port­ed­ly pro­duce an es­ti­mat­ed 400 mil­lion cu­bic feet per day.