Da­reece Po­lo

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has re­fused to say who will lead ne­go­ti­a­tions with Venezuela over the stalled Drag­on gas project, in­sist­ing on­ly that “the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go is one Gov­ern­ment.”

Pressed on whether he per­son­al­ly would meet with Venezue­lan of­fi­cials yes­ter­day, Mooni­lal de­flect­ed: “All I can tell you is that the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go will have dis­cus­sions with all stake­hold­ers in­volved, whether it’s the Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties, the multi­na­tion­als in­volved, the Unit­ed States ad­min­is­tra­tion … We are very con­fi­dent that the Drag­on has been res­ur­rect­ed.”

His re­marks came just a day af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar met US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio in Wash­ing­ton on Mon­day, where the US sig­nalled sup­port for restart­ing the cross-bor­der ven­ture. The de­vel­op­ment is wide­ly viewed as a break­through, fol­low­ing Wash­ing­ton’s de­ci­sion in April to re­voke a key OFAC li­cence—a move that stalled the project weeks be­fore the Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

For­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young, who man­aged the deal un­der the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment, yes­ter­day ac­cused the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress of shift­ing its stance and warned that “the Gov­ern­ment can­not avoid di­rect talks” with Venezuela Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez, who is al­so its en­er­gy min­is­ter.

How­ev­er, Mooni­lal re­ject­ed that charge dur­ing a tele-con­fer­ence with re­porters, fram­ing the UNC’s po­si­tion as a cri­tique of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s ap­proach rather than the project it­self.

“If and when nec­es­sary, I would have no dif­fi­cul­ty go­ing back to Wash­ing­ton, to Hous­ton, to Cara­cas, to any­where once it ad­vances the in­ter­ests of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

He al­so sought to draw a line be­tween op­po­si­tion to Venezue­lan of­fi­cials en­ter­ing T&T dur­ing the COVID-19 bor­der clo­sure and op­po­si­tion to en­gag­ing Cara­cas di­rect­ly.

“If and when nec­es­sary, I would have no dif­fi­cul­ty go­ing back to Wash­ing­ton, to Hous­ton, to Cara­cas, to any­where once it ad­vances the in­ter­ests of Trinidad and To­ba­go, he said.”

But Mooni­lal side­stepped re­peat­ed ques­tions on whether his Gov­ern­ment recog­nis­es Nicolás Maduro as Venezuela’s le­git­i­mate pres­i­dent.

He al­so sought to por­tray Gov­ern­ment’s en­er­gy strat­e­gy as broad­er than Venezuela, high­light­ing new av­enues in Grena­da, Guyana and Suri­name.

“We have not put all our eggs in one bas­ket,” he said, point­ing to Exxon­Mo­bil’s re­turn to Trinidad’s deep­wa­ter acreage and Chi­nese in­vest­ment in­ter­est.

He said T&T will par­tic­i­pate in a ma­jor sym­po­sium in Grena­da in No­vem­ber, sup­port­ing that coun­try with “ear­ly sci­en­tif­ic work, tech­ni­cal work and in­sti­tu­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty build­ing.” He al­so not­ed “very pos­i­tive feed­back” from Suri­name’s new gov­ern­ment and the in­tent to “rekin­dle ties” with Guyana’s re­turn­ing ad­min­is­tra­tion.

For­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine, who signed a frame­work agree­ment with Cara­cas in 2015, yes­ter­day wel­comed progress on the deal.

“Any­thing that de­liv­ers more nat­ur­al gas to our plants at Point Lisas and our trains at At­lantic is wel­comed. In that con­text, the Prime Min­is­ter’s in­ter­ven­tion this week with Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio is pos­i­tive for the coun­try,” Ram­nar­ine said in a What­sApp ex­change with Guardian Me­dia.

But for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan yes­ter­day urged cau­tion, warn­ing that the rhetoric-laden ex­changes be­tween T&T and Venezuela lead­ers could al­so jeop­ar­dise the 30-year li­cence grant­ed to the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny in 2023.

“That may have an im­pact on the dis­cus­sions and ne­go­ti­a­tions or the rene­go­ti­a­tion of this E&P li­cence in or­der to meet the stip­u­la­tion of the Unit­ed States. But it is worth the at­tempt.”

In­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert Pro­fes­sor An­tho­ny Bryan al­so ar­gued that T&T must push ahead with Drag­on even un­der un­cer­tain po­lit­i­cal con­di­tions.

“T&T should pur­sue the Drag­on gas deal to the fullest now that the OFAC li­cences are as­sured. If the US wants to re­duce the ben­e­fits to Venezuela un­der the pre­vi­ous li­cence, that should be a mat­ter of ne­go­ti­a­tion be­tween Venezuela and the US.”

How­ev­er, he cau­tioned Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to show re­straint in her pub­lic re­marks. “The PM should be more con­strained in her re­marks. Per­haps un­stat­ed is the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Drag­on gas will flow once Maduro is out.”

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath went fur­ther, warn­ing that hos­tile rhetoric be­tween the Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Maduro ad­min­is­tra­tions could com­pli­cate ne­go­ti­a­tions.

“Keep qui­et to the ex­tent that we are go­ing to keep qui­et and say that we are not go­ing to in­flame the con­ver­sa­tions be­tween Venezuela and our­selves,” he said, not­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s align­ment with the US on se­cu­ri­ty in the Caribbean Sea.

“They need to tone down and keep their mouths shut when it comes to regime change or any in­ter­ven­tions by Venezuela in­to Guyana or any­thing like that. Just keep qui­et on those is­sues.”

For now, he said the project’s fate rests not on­ly on US li­cens­ing, but on whether T&T and Venezuela can set dif­fer­ences aside and hold del­i­cate con­ver­sa­tions to ben­e­fit both ter­ri­to­ries.