Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Roodal Mooni­lal has high­light­ed some of his min­istry’s ar­eas of fo­cus for the coun­try’s en­er­gy sec­tor, in­clud­ing the re-emer­gence of T&T as the “en­er­gy leader of the Caribbean” by lever­ag­ing his­to­ry, knowl­edge and peo­ple.

He al­so spoke of Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to re­sume re­fin­ing op­er­a­tions in the coun­try.

These were among the dis­cus­sions when ex­ec­u­tives from the min­istry met with Dr Jenifer Nei­d­hart de Or­tiz, Chargé d’Af­faires and oth­er se­nior of­fi­cials from the US Em­bassy in T&T.

A re­lease from the min­istry is­sued over the week­end said that at the meet­ing, Mooni­lal em­pha­sised the long-stand­ing pos­i­tive re­la­tion­ship be­tween the T&T and the Unit­ed States.

The En­er­gy Min­is­ter al­so told the Chargé d’Af­faires about Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­mit­ment to con­tin­u­ing to part­ner with the US in var­i­ous sec­tors and to deep­en­ing the re­la­tion­ship be­tween both coun­tries.

Sim­i­lar­ly, the Chargé d’Af­faires ac­knowl­edged the deep ties be­tween the Unit­ed States and T&T in many dif­fer­ent ar­eas such as en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty, law en­force­ment and cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty.

The re­lease said she not­ed the pres­ence of Amer­i­can com­pa­nies that are a part of T&T’s en­er­gy sec­tor, as well as the trad­ing re­la­tion­ship be­tween both coun­tries and gave her com­mit­ment to con­tin­u­ing to build on the part­ner­ship and trust that has ex­ist­ed for decades.

The min­istry re­it­er­at­ed that the meet­ing was very fruit­ful and would lead the way to con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween both par­ties aimed at achiev­ing tar­gets that are mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial to both coun­tries and to the re­gion as a whole.

This meet­ing fol­lowed talks held on May 7, be­tween min­istry of­fi­cials and a del­e­ga­tion from the De­part­ment for En­er­gy Se­cu­ri­ty and Net Ze­ro of the Unit­ed King­dom led by Min­is­ter Ker­ry Mc­Carthy, Par­lia­men­tary Un­der Sec­re­tary of State for the De­part­ment for En­er­gy Se­cu­ri­ty and Net Ze­ro.

At that meet­ing, Mooni­lal had in­di­cat­ed his in­tent to forge ahead with the pro­mo­tion of al­ter­na­tive en­er­gy by ad­dress­ing the leg­isla­tive and reg­u­la­to­ry gaps that hin­der its de­ploy­ment.

He had al­so shared his ini­tial thoughts on fu­ture pol­i­cy and in­sti­tu­tion­al strength­en­ing.

Tech­ni­cal, pol­i­cy and reg­u­la­tion in­ter­ven­tions were key ar­eas iden­ti­fied for pos­si­ble syn­er­gies with the UK.