The gov­ern­ments of T&T?and Grena­da have signed an agree­ment to ad­vance the joint ex­plo­ration and ex­ploita­tion of hy­dro­car­bons in the mar­itime ar­eas be­tween the two coun­tries. The sign­ing took place be­tween En­er­gy Min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine and Naz­im Burke, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Plan­ning, Econ­o­my, En­er­gy and Co-op­er­a­tives of Grena­da. The agree­ment lays the foun­da­tion for a broad spec­trum of co­op­er­a­tion ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing:

(a) de­vel­op­ment and im­ple­men­ta­tion of tech­ni­cal pro­grammes, projects and ac­tiv­i­ties

(b) con­duct of joint seis­mic sur­veys and joint ex­plo­ration

(c) im­ple­men­ta­tion of joint de­vel­op­ment plans for the uni­ti­sa­tion of hy­dro­car­bon reser­voirs ex­ist­ing in the re­spec­tive con­ti­nen­tal shelves of both coun­tries

(d) con­duct of joint bid rounds.

The min­istry said this is the first such agree­ment be­tween T&T?and an­oth­er Cari­com coun­try, ex­e­cut­ed with­in a frame­work for the fur­ther de­vel­op­ment of the re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion move­ment as en­vis­aged in the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas, which calls for the pro­mo­tion of the de­vel­op­ment of the re­gion's nat­ur­al re­sources on a sus­tain­able ba­sis. Burke said the agree­ment not on­ly pro­vides for "joint co-op­er­a­tion in de­ter­min­ing our hy­dro­car­bon re­serves, ex­plo­ration and ex­ploita­tion of these re­serves for our mu­tu­al ben­e­fit," but al­so for "skills and tech­nol­o­gy trans­fers" be­tween both Caribbean coun­tries.