Akash Sama­roo

Re­port­ing from UN­GA,

New York

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has hailed this coun­try’s re­cent meet­ing with Sau­di Ara­bi­an en­er­gy gi­ant Sau­di Aram­co as a ma­jor step to­ward eas­ing the for­eign ex­change cri­sis and cre­at­ing jobs.

On Wednes­day, For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers told Guardian Me­dia that a pro­duc­tive meet­ing on en­er­gy-re­lat­ed mat­ters was held with Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, For­eign Min­is­ter of Sau­di Ara­bia, here on the side­lines at the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly (UN­GA)) in New York.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia out­side of the UN Head­quar­ters, Sobers said, “Sau­di Aram­co is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, oil com­pa­ny in the world. And so, we al­so have ma­ture com­pa­nies in Trinidad and To­ba­go. So, we’re just re­al­ly see­ing how best we can part­ner and grow to­geth­er with Sau­di Ara­bia and that would have been the cen­tre of our dis­cus­sions and to set up a foot­print in the Mid­dle East, that was al­so dis­cussed as well too. And some of those dis­cus­sions will al­so con­tin­ue with oth­er Mid­dle East­ern coun­tries like the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates and Qatar as well too.”

Sobers ex­plained that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar will al­so be meet­ing with the Deputy Prime Min­is­ter of the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates and the Emir of Kuwait.

Speak­ing via tele­phone from T&T yes­ter­day, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Mooni­lal told Guardian Me­dia that these meet­ings are part of the Gov­ern­ment’s “ex­pan­sive and ag­gres­sive ap­proach to rein­vig­o­rate the en­er­gy sec­tor.”

Com­ment­ing on the meet­ing via What­sApp, the min­is­ter said, “We would be in­ter­est­ed in ex­pand­ing our in­vest­ment port­fo­lio and part­ner­ing with the oil ma­jors through­out the world. Sau­di Aram­co is, of course, the largest state-owned oil and pe­tro­le­um com­pa­ny in Sau­di Ara­bia. And we are in­ter­est­ed, of course, in meet­ing and dis­cussing part­ner­ships as it re­lates to their par­tic­i­pa­tion in the en­er­gy sec­tor lo­cal­ly, but al­so our in­volve­ment with them in re­lat­ed up­stream, down­stream mat­ters.”

How­ev­er, Mooni­lal said the coun­try is al­so look­ing be­yond the Mid­dle East.

“We are ex­treme­ly pleased that af­ter the last bid round, the third largest na­tion­al oil and gas com­pa­ny of Chi­na, CNOOC (Chi­na Na­tion­al Off­shore Oil Cor­po­ra­tion), has ex­pressed an in­ter­est in work­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go off­shore, par­tic­u­lar­ly the deep-wa­ter ar­eas. And that is very pos­i­tive, so that we are on a mis­sion to at­tract the oil ma­jors of the world for in­vest­ment and par­tic­i­pa­tion in our econ­o­my to rein­vig­o­rate the en­er­gy sec­tor,” Mooni­lal said.

The En­er­gy Min­is­ter be­lieves this will cre­ate em­ploy­ment, rev­enue and for­eign ex­change for the coun­try.