Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal close­ly fol­lowed yes­ter­day’s gen­er­al elec­tion in Guyana, par­tic­u­lar­ly in re­la­tion to re-ig­nit­ing en­er­gy col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the two coun­tries.

The elec­tion, which de­ter­mined a Pres­i­dent and 65 seats in Par­lia­ment, fea­tured six par­ties, with the con­test large­ly fo­cused on a three-way race be­tween in­cum­bent Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali’s Peo­ple’s Pro­gres­sive Par­ty (PPP), op­po­si­tion leader Aubrey Nor­ton’s Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Con­gress Re­form (PN­CR), and bil­lion­aire Azrud­din Mo­hamed’s “We In­vest in Na­tion­hood Par­ty.”

Over 750,000 vot­ers were reg­is­tered at more than 2,800 polling sta­tions, with the PPP wide­ly tipped to re­tain pow­er.

Mooni­lal, fresh from suc­cess­ful ne­go­ti­a­tions with Grena­da on joint en­er­gy projects and fol­low­ing last Fri­day’s meet­ing be­tween Grena­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Dick­on Mitchell and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Gov­ern­ment, said, “We’re keep­ing an eye on de­vel­op­ments in Guyana as they re­late to re-ig­nit­ing en­er­gy col­lab­o­ra­tions that have been luke­warm over the past years.

“We are con­fi­dent there are sev­er­al ar­eas of mu­tu­al in­ter­est for the ben­e­fit of both na­tions.”

In June, Mooni­lal had out­lined plans for re­gion­al en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion with Guyana, Suri­name, and Grena­da.

He not­ed that up­on tak­ing of­fice, his Gov­ern­ment found that T&T—which has the most ex­per­tise in the sec­tor—had no sig­nif­i­cant foot­print in Guyana or Suri­name.

Mooni­lal high­light­ed en­gage­ment with the Guyana Oil and Gas En­er­gy Cham­ber, which pledged to sup­port T&T com­pa­nies in the coun­try.

He al­so ex­pressed op­ti­mism about Phoenix Gas’s plans to as­sist with a gas pro­cess­ing strat­e­gy in Guyana.

“It is crit­i­cal that our state en­ter­pris­es es­tab­lish them­selves as se­ri­ous in­vestors in Guyana, Suri­name, and Grena­da,” he said. “That is our vi­sion. Trinidad and To­ba­go will be­come the hub not by out­pro­duc­ing Guyana or Suri­name, but by strate­gic col­lab­o­ra­tion and in­vest­ment.”

Re­gard­ing the Grena­da joint ven­tures, Mooni­lal said re­cent meet­ings ad­vanced T&T’s agen­da and clar­i­fied strate­gic ob­jec­tives agreed up­on by both na­tions.

“In the com­ing days, the da­ta-shar­ing agree­ment will be signed, and a new steer­ing com­mit­tee ap­point­ed.

“We now have a clear line of sight on our ad­vance­ment on the Grena­di­an front as a re­sult of these re­cent, in­tense en­er­gy diplo­ma­cy ef­forts,” he added.

At­tempts to reach For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers for com­ment on the Guyana elec­tion were un­suc­cess­ful.