Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

UNC MP David Lee has called on the Gov­ern­ment to say if the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment has lumped the Drag­on Gas agree­ment in­to one with the Lo­ran Man­a­tee field project.

In his con­tri­bu­tion to Mon­day's 2024 Bud­get de­bate in Par­lia­ment, Lee asked for de­tails of the Drag­on Field agree­ment signed re­cent­ly.

"Did they sign when we'll be get­ting first gas? When are we start­ing op­er­a­tions? Did they agree T&T won't have to pay cash to the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment?" he asked.

Lee sought clar­i­fi­ca­tion on whether Venezuela asked for a pipeline from the Drag­on field to Guiria on the Venezue­lan side and to run a pipeline to At­lantic LNG in Point Fortin.

"I don't know but I was told...and that be­comes a ne­go­ti­at­ing item. If that's so, you un­der­stand what goes in Venezuela: every Mon­day morn­ing they could turn off that pipeline from Guiria and our mon­ey will be jump­ing up," he said.

Lee al­so said it ap­pears the Venezue­lans want to lump the Drag­on Field and Lo­ran Man­a­tee fields in­to one.

"I un­der­stand Pres­i­dent (Nico­las) Maduro is ask­ing T&T to re­con­sid­er that whole Lo­ran Man­a­tee de­vel­op­ment and if you lis­tened to the En­er­gy Min­is­ter in de­bate, he men­tioned some­thing to that ef­fect but (didn't give de­tails)," Lee added, call­ing for clar­i­fi­ca­tion.

Lee, who de­nied En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young's claims of PP gov­ern­ment mis­man­age­ment and lack of ac­tion on the en­er­gy sec­tor, said Young re­peat­ed much of what he usu­al­ly says in de­bates. He said Gov­ern­ment hadn't moved the sec­tor in eight years and not in­creased oil or gas pro­duc­tion, but there was a lot of fo­cus on "ne­go­ti­at­ing" con­tracts and claims."

Lee said cur­rent plans will on­ly pro­duce way ahead. He said the Re­view of the Econ­o­my 2024 paint­ed a grim pic­ture of T&T's re­al­i­ties and called on Young to give as­sur­ance that the Petrotrin re­tirees 'pen­sion plan - which needs $200m - will be saved

Lee said Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert's Bud­get was "lack­lus­tre, lack­ing sound poli­cies to stim­u­late the econ­o­my, failed to meet the pop­u­la­tion's needs and was ab­sent of any pol­i­cy to dri­ve na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment."

Lee, who de­nied Young's claim of the Op­po­si­tion lack­ing pa­tri­o­tism, said he loved his coun­try and played blue dev­il and jab jab.