DA­REECE PO­LO

& GAIL ALEXAN­DER

The En­er­gy Cham­ber has wel­comed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s an­nounce­ment that US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio sup­ports the ap­proval of the rel­e­vant Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC) li­cences to be­gin dis­cus­sions with Venezuela to­ward de­vel­op­ing its cross-bor­der hy­dro­car­bons.

“The de­vel­op­ment of cross-bor­der fields and the im­por­ta­tion of nat­ur­al gas from Venezuela are im­por­tant for the fu­ture of the Trinidad & To­ba­go gas and petro­chem­i­cal sec­tors and hence for na­tion­al eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment,” the cham­ber said in state­ment, con­grat­u­lat­ing the Prime Min­is­ter on se­cur­ing the agree­ment.

For­mer Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, how­ev­er, not­ed that even when the OFAC li­cences were re­voked in April, Ru­bio had in­di­cat­ed to him that they could be re­in­stat­ed.

“This de­vel­op­ment is con­sis­tent with what Sec­re­tary Ru­bio told me when I was Prime Min­is­ter. Amaz­ing­ly, one of the first an­nounce­ments of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar af­ter she was sworn in was that Drag­on was dead and now, in a not sur­pris­ing com­plete about-turn, the UNC is pur­su­ing Venezue­lan Drag­on gas. The suc­cess of cross-bor­der gas de­pends on mul­ti­lat­er­al diplo­ma­cy, as the gas is owned by an­oth­er state,” Young said.

An­a­lysts: Crit­i­cal ne­go­ti­a­tions still ahead

An­a­lysts have al­so warned that the Gov­ern­ment’s cel­e­bra­to­ry tone may over­look chal­lenges posed by T&T’s strained re­la­tions with Venezuela in the wake of the US’ an­ti-drug ex­er­cis­es in the Caribbean.

“I am not sure whether that OFAC li­cence may mean much if the Venezue­lan side does not re­spond,” in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert Dr An­tho­ny Gon­za­les said yes­ter­day.

“In­deed, our re­la­tions with Venezuela are a bit strained. We talk about giv­ing the Amer­i­cans a base here in the event that Venezuela at­tacks Guyana and so on, and the Venezue­lans are very con­cerned about us be­ing a stag­ing area. So, I’m not sure that they are like­ly to con­tin­ue what they were do­ing with us be­fore.”

While he does not con­sid­er the dam­age per­ma­nent, Dr Gon­za­les urged cau­tion, stress­ing the need for care­ful diplo­ma­cy.

“I don’t think it’s ir­repara­ble. I tend to feel that we can still, by keep­ing our mouths shut most of the time and not open­ly sup­port­ing a lot of these Amer­i­can ac­tions here, we may still be able to prob­a­bly get back our re­la­tions with the Venezue­lans.”

Econ­o­mist and for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Mar­i­ano Browne al­so cau­tioned that the an­nounce­ment should not be seen as a guar­an­teed path for­ward. He said while Ru­bio sup­ports is­su­ing OFAC li­cences, fi­nal ne­go­ti­a­tions and align­ment with Venezuela’s terms re­main crit­i­cal.

“Even if the OFAC li­cences were giv­en, Trinidad and To­ba­go does not have an au­to­mat­ic right to ex­plore and to use the li­cences in Venezue­lan wa­ters. Venezuela’s li­cence is giv­en un­der cer­tain con­di­tions. If the con­di­tions of the OFAC li­cences are not con­gru­ent with the con­di­tions un­der which the li­cences were giv­en, you have a prob­lem,” Browne said.

“It’s good news but it isn’t all the news that we need. There still are at least two more steps to take.”

He added that Gov­ern­ment must now fo­cus on mend­ing its re­la­tion­ship with Venezuela, fol­low­ing tense in­ter­ac­tions be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Venezue­lan of­fi­cials Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo, Vladimir Padri­no López and Del­cy Ro­dríguez.

“It was al­ways an is­sue that you would have to have con­ver­sa­tions with Venezuela. So, there’s no need for you at this stage to have ba­si­cal­ly gone and slap Venezuela in the face. Be­cause you now need to do a turn­around and talk to them and set up a re­la­tion­ship once again,” Browne said.

For­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath al­so said while se­cur­ing US po­lit­i­cal sup­port was a sig­nif­i­cant first step, the true test lies ahead.

Bharath said, “The Prime Min­is­ter’s an­nounce­ment that T&T has se­cured the sup­port of the Unit­ed States Sec­re­tary of State for the de­vel­op­ment of our cross-bor­der hy­dro­car­bon re­sources is un­doubt­ed­ly a wel­come and pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ment.

“En­er­gy has long been the back­bone of our econ­o­my, and any ini­tia­tive that pro­vides new op­por­tu­ni­ties to mon­e­tise our re­serves, at­tract for­eign in­vest­ment, in­crease eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty and strength­en our in­ter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships de­serves com­men­da­tion.”

He added, “The Gov­ern­ment must be con­grat­u­lat­ed for en­gag­ing at the high­est diplo­mat­ic lev­els and en­sur­ing that our na­tion­al in­ter­ests re­main on the radar of Wash­ing­ton. That said, I be­lieve it’s es­sen­tial that we tem­per our op­ti­mism with pru­dence. Se­cur­ing po­lit­i­cal sup­port from the Unit­ed States is a sig­nif­i­cant first step, but it does not, by it­self, guar­an­tee tan­gi­ble out­comes.

“The grant­i­ng of OFAC li­cences, the align­ment of com­mer­cial in­ter­ests, and the ne­go­ti­a­tion of fair terms with our part­ners will all re­quire sub­tle and deft han­dling. We must be vig­i­lant to en­sure that in our pur­suit of for­eign ap­proval and in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion, the sov­er­eign­ty of T&T over its re­sources is not com­pro­mised.”

He said en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty must al­so be viewed through the lens of sus­tain­abil­i­ty and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion.

“The glob­al mar­ket is in tran­si­tion, with coun­tries rapid­ly ac­cel­er­at­ing in­vest­ment in re­new­able en­er­gy. While our hy­dro­car­bons re­main valu­able, we can­not af­ford to pin our long-term pros­per­i­ty on re­sources whose strate­gic rel­e­vance is in de­cline. Nor can we an­chor our hopes and eco­nom­ic well-be­ing on a pos­si­ble frag­ile Venezue­lan arrange­ment. This de­vel­op­ment should there­fore be pur­sued in par­al­lel with ro­bust poli­cies to broad­en our eco­nom­ic base, re­duce our de­pen­den­cy on oil and gas rev­enues, and pre­pare for the in­evitable en­er­gy tran­si­tion. There­fore, the Prime Min­is­ter’s suc­cess in ob­tain­ing US sup­port is a pos­i­tive step, but the true test lies ahead — in how we man­age ne­go­ti­a­tions, safe­guard na­tion­al in­ter­ests, and use this op­por­tu­ni­ty as a bridge to­ward a more re­silient and di­ver­si­fied econ­o­my.”

For­mer MP/min­is­ter Ra­mona Ram­di­al added, “This is ex­cel­lent news for T&T and our en­er­gy fu­ture. The is­sue now will be if the cur­rent Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment led by (Nico­las) Maduro will agree to rene­go­ti­ate Drag­on gas with us. How­ev­er, a regime change in Venezuela soon may be a bet­ter way for us to ac­cess the Drag­on gas.”

Ef­forts to reach Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les and for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley were un­suc­cess­ful. The Op­po­si­tion is ex­pect­ed to hold a me­dia con­fer­ence at 1 pm to­day.