GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Min­is­ter of En­er­gy, Stu­art Young, said yes­ter­day that the spe­cif­ic li­cence grant­ed by the US gov­ern­ment this week to de­vel­op the Drag­on nat­ur­al gas field on Oc­to­ber 17 is sep­a­rate from a gen­er­al li­cence grant­ed to Venezuela on Oc­to­ber 18.

He made the dis­tinc­tion be­tween the two li­cences in a news re­lease that fol­lowed a vir­tu­al news con­fer­ence host­ed by Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress ac­tivist Ravi Bal­go­b­in Ma­haraj, who ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of "hid­ing less favourable in­for­ma­tion," be­fore con­clud­ing that T&T on­ly has six months to pay for the nat­ur­al gas from the Drag­on field.

Young con­firmed that on Oc­to­ber 17, 2023 the Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC) of the De­part­ment of Trea­sury of the Unit­ed States Gov­ern­ment is­sued a li­cence amend­ment to this Gov­ern­ment based up­on re­quests made by Gov­ern­ment on March 8, 2023 and Sep­tem­ber 15, 2023 with re­spect to, in­ter alia, the de­vel­op­ment of the Drag­on gas field.

Young ex­plained the OFAC li­cence amend­ment is spe­cif­ic to Gov­ern­ment and the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) and is for the ben­e­fit of Gov­ern­ment, NGC, Shell and their sub­sidiaries, af­fil­i­ates and con­trac­tors to pur­sue, in­ter alia, the plan­ning, fi­nanc­ing, de­vel­op­ment, ex­e­cu­tion and man­age­ment of the Drag­on gas field.

Ac­cord­ing to Young, the li­cence amend­ment grant­ed to this Gov­ern­ment ex­pires on Oc­to­ber 31, 2025 and among oth­er things, per­mits the Gov­ern­ment to ne­go­ti­ate with the Gov­ern­ment of Venezuela and PDVSA to ob­tain ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion li­cences to ex­tract nat­ur­al gas, to op­er­ate the Drag­on field and to make var­i­ous pay­ments as­so­ci­at­ed with such a project in­clud­ing, tax­es, roy­al­ties, fees and lease bonus pay­ments.

The min­is­ter fur­ther stat­ed that the OFAC li­cence grant­ed is spe­cif­ic and sep­a­rate to the gen­er­al li­cense that was is­sued by OFAC on Oc­to­ber 18, 2023 re­lat­ing to Venezuela that ex­pires on April 18, 2024.

"That gen­er­al OFAC li­cense no. 44 does not af­fect the work be­ing un­der­tak­en by Gov­ern­ment and the Gov­ern­ment of Venezuela to pro­duce and ex­port the gas from the Drag­on gas field to Trinidad and To­ba­go," said Young.

"The Min­istry cau­tions against mis­lead­ing and false in­for­ma­tion from in­di­vid­u­als who have no knowl­edge and in­for­ma­tion with re­spect to the work be­ing un­der­tak­en by GORTT along with the Gov­ern­ment of Venezuela for the Drag­on project, nor any knowl­edge and in­for­ma­tion with re­spect to the dis­cus­sions and ne­go­ti­a­tions that have tak­en place be­tween GORTT and the Gov­ern­ment of the Unit­ed States, who are now seek­ing to mis­lead and cre­ate doubt by re­fer­ring to the said gen­er­al OFAC li­cence no. 44 is­sued on Oc­to­ber 18, 2023 which ex­pires on April 18, 2024," the en­er­gy min­is­ter said.

Bal­go­b­in Ma­haraj's claims

Speak­ing yes­ter­day, Bal­go­b­in said T&T is be­ing used as "a car­rot on a stick for the US to dan­gle in front of the Maduro regime to hold de­mo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tions in that coun­try."

For that rea­son, he said it is very un­like­ly that any­thing will re­sult from these ne­go­ti­a­tions adding that "once again the PNM would have failed to de­liv­er on their promis­es to this coun­try and its cit­i­zens."

Bal­go­b­in based his claims on what he said was a press re­lease is­sued by the US De­part­ment of the Trea­sury on Oc­to­ber 18, 2023, ti­tled, "In Re­sponse to Elec­toral Roadmap, Trea­sury Is­sues New Venezuela Gen­er­al Li­cens­es."

Quot­ing from the doc­u­ment Bal­go­b­in said,"...Trea­sury is pre­pared to amend or re­voke au­tho­ri­sa­tions at any time, should rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Maduro fail to fol­low through on their com­mit­ments. All oth­er re­stric­tions im­posed by the Unit­ed States on Venezuela re­main in place, and we will con­tin­ue to hold bad ac­tors ac­count­able.”

Ac­cord­ing to Bal­go­b­in, the US is­sued a six-month gen­er­al li­cence tem­porar­i­ly au­tho­ris­ing trans­ac­tions in­volv­ing the oil and gas sec­tor in Venezuela and that li­cence will be re­newed on­ly if Venezuela meets its com­mit­ments un­der the elec­toral roadmap as well as oth­er com­mit­ments with re­spect to those who are wrong­ful­ly de­tained.

With this in­for­ma­tion, Bal­go­b­in said it is clear the de­tails pro­vid­ed by the Min­is­ter of En­er­gy at his press con­fer­ence on Tues­day were "de­lib­er­ate­ly script­ed to hide the less favourable terms of this new li­cense."

"The rea­son that the new two-year pe­ri­od grant­ed for ne­go­ti­a­tions be­gins on Oc­to­ber 31 2023, is so that it aligns with the gen­er­al li­cences for the lift­ing of sanc­tion re­stric­tions by the US, and is not a re­sult of any ne­go­ti­a­tions by the T&T Gov­ern­ment.

"The pe­ri­od that T&T would be able to pay for gas ex­tract­ed from the Drag­on Gas field ex­pires on April 18, 2024 and on­ly spans six months out of the two-year li­cense grant­ed by Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC). While ex­ten­sions to this six-month pe­ri­od can be grant­ed by the US, it is based on whether the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment com­plies with their de­mands for fresh de­mo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tions, and the re­lease of po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers cur­rent­ly held by the Maduro-led regime," Bal­go­b­in added.

He fur­ther claimed that if there is no ex­ten­sion to the six-month pe­ri­od win­dow for pay­ment in ei­ther US, Venezue­lan or fi­at cur­ren­cy, the Maduro gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue to re­ject pay­ment for the Drag­on field gas in any hu­man­i­tar­i­an cur­ren­cy.

"If the Maduro-led gov­ern­ment does not com­ply with the in­struc­tions laid out for them by the US gov­ern­ment with­in the six-month pe­ri­od, the sanc­tions will be re­in­forced and may in­clude more re­stric­tions for the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment due to their non-com­pli­ance. This will neg­a­tive­ly im­pact any chance of T&T ac­cess­ing gas from the Drag­on Field," Bal­go­b­in stat­ed.