Ex­perts in the en­er­gy sec­tor are warn­ing that T&T’s Drag­on gas agree­ment with Venezuela, up­on which T&T’s eco­nom­ic for­tunes de­pend, could be in jeop­ardy. They are now “un­cer­tain” about the fu­ture of the deal af­ter Don­ald Trump won Tues­day’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tions in the Unit­ed States, urg­ing T&T to adopt a wait-and-see ap­proach.

Yes­ter­day, on his In­sta­gram page, Venezuela’s For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Yván Gil con­grat­u­lat­ed Trump on his vic­to­ry. Fran­cis­co Monal­di, an en­er­gy econ­o­mist and a di­rec­tor at the Cen­ter for En­er­gy Stud­ies at Rice Uni­ver­si­ty’s Bak­er In­sti­tute for Pub­lic Pol­i­cy in the Unit­ed States, told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that al­though Trump tight­ened sanc­tions on Venezuela, he may mod­i­fy his poli­cies in his sec­ond term.

“I think it is hard to read the ex­act poli­cies that Mr Trump will en­act with re­spect to sanc­tions in Venezuela in the oil sec­tor. On one hand, his team in­clud­ed very hawk­ish peo­ple who tend to favour poli­cies that are very tough against the (Nico­las) Maduro ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“On the oth­er hand, Mr Trump has crit­i­cised the use of sanc­tions in the case of Rus­sia and even hint­ed that sanc­tions on Iran should sig­nif­i­cant­ly change. It is hard to know what will be his po­si­tion in terms of sanc­tion poli­cies in Venezuela. There is sig­nif­i­cant un­cer­tain­ty over how Trump’s ad­min­is­tra­tion will ap­proach sanc­tions with Venezuela.”

Monal­di is ad­vis­ing T&T and oth­er coun­tries in­volved to take a wait-and-see ap­proach, as it would take time for Trump’s new team to set­tle and be­gin defin­ing his en­er­gy pol­i­cy.

“What is clear is that in or­der for the Drag­on project to move ahead, they need a long-term li­cence, and I do not think in the first few months of the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion that would be de­fined. That might pro­duce a de­lay, but even­tu­al­ly they will de­fine their poli­cies and know what de­ci­sion to take on that.

“I think in a prag­mat­ic ap­proach, they should be more flex­i­ble with the gas li­cences over the oil li­cences giv­en that these are projects that will take time and will not rep­re­sent for Maduro sig­nif­i­cant fi­nan­cial con­tri­bu­tions com­pared to the oil.”

He al­so point­ed out that the Eu­ro­pean lob­by, which is in­ter­est­ed in T&T’s gas, might be less in­flu­en­tial on Trump’s ad­min­is­tra­tion on this is­sue. In a state­ment to Guardian Me­dia ear­li­er this year, the Eu­ro­pean Union’s Am­bas­sador to T&T, Pe­ter Cavendish said, “The Eu­ro­pean Union is, of course, very in­ter­est­ed in di­ver­si­fy­ing its sources of en­er­gy, and in this con­text, the pos­si­ble sup­port to the ex­ploita­tion of the Venezue­lan gas field is of great in­ter­est.”

Last De­cem­ber, T&T and Venezuela signed an agree­ment that al­lows T&T a 30-year of­fi­cial li­cence for the ex­plo­ration, pro­duc­tion, and ex­port of nat­ur­al gas from the Drag­on Gas Field in Venezuela.

Em­pha­sis­ing the im­por­tance of this agree­ment in Sep­tem­ber, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley warned the coun­try that dif­fi­cult days lie ahead and that cit­i­zens should tight­en their belts un­til there is new gas pro­duc­tion in 2027.

Venezuela’s oil and gas have been un­der heavy sanc­tions, which be­gan un­der Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma in 2015 and have con­tin­ued un­der the Don­ald Trump and Joe Biden ad­min­is­tra­tions un­til the present.

How­ev­er, at the sign­ing of the Drag­on gas agree­ment in De­cem­ber 2023, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley as­sured that his Gov­ern­ment had se­cured a li­cence to pro­ceed with the ex­trac­tion of nat­ur­al gas from Venezuela’s Drag­on gas field from the Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC).

For­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter and en­er­gy con­sul­tant Kevin Ram­nar­ine said this coun­try, like the rest of the world, has to wait to see what Trump’s poli­cies will be like.

“With re­gard to Drag­on and Couci­na-Man­akin, it is left to be seen what his for­eign pol­i­cy stance on Venezuela will be. The change in ad­min­is­tra­tion in the USA thus in­tro­duces an­oth­er lay­er of un­cer­tain­ty over the two li­cences. I’m sure BP and Shell, the two in­vestors in Drag­on and Cocuina-Man­akin, would be con­cerned about the OFAC li­cences and their re­new­al.”

Ram­nar­ine al­so spoke on bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions be­tween T&T and the US and re­ferred to past fric­tion be­tween the two coun­tries over re­la­tions with Venezuela. “The last US am­bas­sador that Pres­i­dent Trump ap­point­ed to Port-of-Spain was the late Mr (Joseph) Mon­del­lo. I re­call that there was a se­ri­ous dis­pute be­tween the cur­rent Min­is­ter of En­er­gy (then Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter), the Prime Min­is­ter, and Mr Mon­del­lo over a vis­it by Venezue­lan Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez to this coun­try.

“I’m sure Pres­i­dent Trump and the peo­ple around him who sup­port his for­eign pol­i­cy for­mu­la­tion and di­rec­tion would not have for­got­ten that in­ci­dent, and it may form part of their brief­ing notes.”

He added, “As can al­so be ex­pect­ed, the in­com­ing pres­i­dent will al­so want to ap­point a new am­bas­sador to Port-of-Spain to re­place Am­bas­sador (Can­dace Bond). The Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion seems to have a good re­la­tion­ship with her, so it’s left to be seen how they nav­i­gate the changes that will come to the US Em­bassy once Don­ald Trump set­tles in­to the White House in Jan­u­ary 2025.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so tried to con­tact En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young by phone, but he did not an­swer the calls or re­spond to mes­sages. The En­er­gy Cham­ber and Venezue­lan Am­bas­sador to T&T Ál­varo En­rique Sánchez Cordero de­clined to com­ment on the mat­ter at this time.