The cap­ture of Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro by US forces has sent shock­waves through­out the Caribbean, and this coun­try can­not ig­nore the po­ten­tial reper­cus­sions for its en­er­gy sec­tor. Spec­u­la­tion has emerged about whether projects, such as the long-stalled Drag­on gas field, might now pro­ceed; yet, the re­al­i­ty re­mains that un­cer­tain­ty sur­round­ing Venezuela’s gov­er­nance, sanc­tions, and US in­volve­ment com­pli­cates any im­me­di­ate prospects.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­it­er­at­ed that T&T’s po­si­tion on the Drag­on gas field re­mains un­changed.

“Drag­on gas is the prop­er­ty of the Venezue­lan peo­ple,” she not­ed, as­sert­ing that de­ci­sions about its de­vel­op­ment rest sole­ly with a le­git­i­mate­ly elect­ed Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment. She em­pha­sised that T&T has nev­er sought to ap­pro­pri­ate Venezue­lan re­sources and will fo­cus in­stead on max­imis­ing its own as­sets. 

The mes­sage is clear: na­tion­al en­er­gy pol­i­cy will re­main an­chored in do­mes­tic re­source man­age­ment, not spec­u­la­tion about for­eign as­sets.

How­ev­er, the state of re­la­tions be­tween T&T and Venezuela adds a lay­er of com­plex­i­ty. While the two coun­tries share deep ge­o­graph­ic, eco­nom­ic, and cul­tur­al ties, po­lit­i­cal re­la­tions have of­ten been cau­tious, par­tic­u­lar­ly in light of Venezuela’s in­ter­nal in­sta­bil­i­ty.

The im­pli­ca­tions of Venezuela’s po­lit­i­cal tur­moil can­not be ig­nored. Drag­on and oth­er cross-bor­der fields, such as Lo­ran-Man­a­tee and Cocuina-Man­akin, were long seen as a po­ten­tial sup­ple­ment to sus­tain this coun­try’s gas sup­ply, par­tic­u­lar­ly for the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate and At­lantic LNG. Do­mes­tic re­serves alone—es­ti­mat­ed at 2.7 tril­lion cu­bic feet—are in­suf­fi­cient to guar­an­tee long-term en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty. There­fore, any de­lays or dis­rup­tions in re­gion­al co­op­er­a­tion or uni­ti­sa­tion agree­ments, com­pound­ed by sanc­tions and the un­clear au­thor­i­ty of a tran­si­tion­al Venezue­lan ad­min­is­tra­tion, leave T&T’s en­er­gy plan­ners nav­i­gat­ing a pre­car­i­ous land­scape.

Even un­der pre­vi­ous agree­ments, the ex­trac­tion of Drag­on gas re­quired li­cences, in­clud­ing ap­proval from the US Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC), and those per­mis­sions on­ly al­lowed ne­go­ti­a­tions rather than pro­duc­tion. With US sanc­tions still in force and no cer­tain­ty about the com­po­si­tion of Venezuela’s gov­ern­ment, there is no mean­ing­ful progress on cross-bor­der gas arrange­ments.

The volatil­i­ty in Cara­cas al­so in­ter­sects with glob­al en­er­gy mar­kets. Venezuela’s vast oil re­serves, now un­der tem­po­rary US con­trol, could shift re­gion­al pro­duc­tion and pric­ing dy­nam­ics. For T&T, al­ready re­liant on hy­dro­car­bon ex­ports, fluc­tu­a­tions in en­er­gy prices could im­pact gov­ern­ment rev­enues, in­dus­tri­al costs and in­vest­ment con­fi­dence. While op­por­tu­ni­ties for part­ner­ships in oil or gas in­fra­struc­ture may ex­ist, these are con­tin­gent on sta­ble gov­er­nance, le­gal clar­i­ty and a res­o­lu­tion of sanc­tions—fac­tors that re­main un­re­solved.

Do­mes­ti­cal­ly, the sit­u­a­tion un­der­scores the im­por­tance of max­imis­ing T&T’s own en­er­gy re­sources. In­vest­ments in ex­plo­ration, ef­fi­cien­cy, and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion must con­tin­ue, along­side care­ful plan­ning for LNG, petro­chem­i­cal, and in­dus­tri­al needs. Gov­ern­ment’s cau­tious stance, in­sist­ing on re­spect for Venezuela’s sov­er­eign­ty and free elec­tions, pro­tects this na­tion from pre­ma­ture en­tan­gle­ment in a for­eign cri­sis while sig­nalling a com­mit­ment to re­gion­al norms.

While Maduro’s re­moval may have reignit­ed spec­u­la­tion about stalled Venezue­lan en­er­gy projects, the im­me­di­ate re­al­i­ty is one of con­tin­ued un­cer­tain­ty. T&T must fo­cus on its do­mes­tic re­sources, strength­en en­er­gy re­silience and mon­i­tor de­vel­op­ments across the Gulf of Paria.

The Venezue­lan cri­sis is a re­minder that re­gion­al in­sta­bil­i­ty di­rect­ly af­fects na­tion­al en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty, and prepa­ra­tion, pru­dence and prin­ci­pled diplo­ma­cy are es­sen­tial to safe­guard­ing this coun­try’s en­er­gy fu­ture.