DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young says de­spite the re­vo­ca­tion of US Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC) li­cences block­ing ex­plo­ration of the Drag­on and Cocuina-Man­akin gas fields, he has re­ceived a “com­mit­ment” from Venezuela.

How­ev­er, he gave no fur­ther de­tails when he spoke at a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in Point Fortin on Tues­day night.

“I was in touch with the gov­ern­ment of Venezuela on the way down here . . . com­mit­ment there,” Young said.

“And then, hav­ing con­ver­sa­tions as well with some of the de­ci­sion mak­ers we need to speak to on the way down here as well. So, you give us the man­date and I will bring it home in some form or fash­ion for us. All of our eggs are not in the Drag­on bas­ket.”

Young’s pre­de­ces­sor, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, warned that T&T’s prospects would be se­vere­ly com­pro­mised if the Drag­on gas deal failed.

How­ev­er, in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert and en­er­gy an­a­lyst Pro­fes­sor An­tho­ny Bryan down­played the sig­nif­i­cance of the project’s set­back, as­sert­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s en­er­gy sec­tor re­mains ro­bust.

“The first thing we must re­alise is that off­shore Trinidad, cer­tain­ly deep­wa­ter Trinidad, is re­plete with gas. All our wells are gas-prone rather than oil, so we re­al­ly have a lot left to ex­plore, some of it not en­cum­bered at all by re­la­tions with Venezuela,” he said.

“I think at the present time there are prob­a­bly 27 blocks in var­i­ous stages of de­vel­op­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly off the south­east coast of Trinidad. I think in some of them, gas is ex­pect­ed with­in the next 24 months, so the loss of the Drag­on field is not a dis­as­ter in my opin­ion.”

​In Jan­u­ary, T&T launched its 2025 Deep Wa­ter Com­pet­i­tive Bid­ding Round, of­fer­ing 26 off­shore blocks in Trinidad’s east­ern and north­ern coasts.

Pro­fes­sor Bryan sug­gest­ed that US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump might re­con­sid­er the li­cense re­vo­ca­tion, giv­en the dy­nam­ic na­ture of in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions. He added that de­spite sanc­tions, Venezuela con­tin­ues to ex­port oil to the US, in­di­cat­ing a po­ten­tial for pol­i­cy shifts.​

“There’s al­ways a chance to re­cal­i­brate and re­con­sid­er. Per­haps the ba­sic point to bear in mind is that Trump is in­ter­est­ed in oil. He’s in­ter­est­ed in all types of en­er­gy,” Bryan said.

He point­ed out that Suri­name com­pletes an en­er­gy tri­an­gle along­side T&T and Guyana, col­lec­tive­ly form­ing a cru­cial part of the south­ern Caribbean en­er­gy ma­trix.

In con­trast, Pa­tri­ot­ic Front po­lit­i­cal leader Mick­ela Pan­day crit­i­cised the gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach, ques­tion­ing the ab­sence of con­tin­gency plans and al­ter­na­tive strate­gies.

She asked: “Where is the con­tin­gency plan? Where is the al­ter­nate strat­e­gy? Where is the lead­er­ship?”

Pan­day de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as a na­tion­al eco­nom­ic and geopo­lit­i­cal cri­sis, at­tribut­ing it to “diplo­mat­ic com­pla­cen­cy” and “strate­gic naivete.” She em­pha­sised the crit­i­cal na­ture of the Drag­on gas deal.

“It was a life­line. It promised over 300 mil­lion cu­bic feet of gas per day, a pipeline of over $1 bil­lion in fu­ture rev­enue and the re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion of an en­tire en­er­gy ecosys­tem.”

Pan­day vowed that if she be­comes prime min­is­ter, she would lead a diplo­mat­ic mis­sion to the US to seek a way for­ward.​