Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the Drag­on gas Agree­ment of­fers sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits for Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Unit­ed States and Venezuela, ad­vanc­ing re­gion­al part­ner­ship, en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty, and eco­nom­ic growth.

The an­nounce­ment fol­lows the Gov­ern­ment’s re­ceipt of an OFAC li­cence, which Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed as a “fresh start­ing point” in on­go­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions.

The li­cence was grant­ed af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s meet­ing with Unit­ed States Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio in Wash­ing­ton in Sep­tem­ber, where dis­cus­sions cen­tred on deep­en­ing co­op­er­a­tion and ad­vanc­ing mu­tu­al in­ter­ests.

“I wish to ex­press my sin­cere grat­i­tude to Sec­re­tary Ru­bio for his ef­forts in en­sur­ing that this li­cence was ap­proved and for help­ing to re­open this crit­i­cal path­way for progress,” the Prime Min­is­ter said in a state­ment yes­ter­day. “This is yet an­oth­er ma­jor vic­to­ry for Trinidad and To­ba­go, re­flect­ing our Gov­ern­ment’s ded­i­ca­tion, diplo­ma­cy, and de­ter­mi­na­tion.”

On Thurs­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so met with se­nior rep­re­sen­ta­tives from BPTT, Pro­man, and Wood­side to dis­cuss col­lab­o­ra­tion and ex­plore new op­por­tu­ni­ties with­in the en­er­gy sec­tor, which she de­scribed as the back­bone of the na­tion­al econ­o­my and a key dri­ver of de­vel­op­ment. She was ac­com­pa­nied by sev­er­al min­is­ters in­clud­ing the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie and En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal.

“These strate­gic en­gage­ments are not on­ly about sus­tain­ing pro­duc­tion but al­so about cre­at­ing new path­ways for in­no­va­tion, di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, and sus­tain­able growth,” she said. “By main­tain­ing these vi­tal in­ter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships, my Gov­ern­ment is en­sur­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to har­ness its en­er­gy re­sources strate­gi­cal­ly and re­spon­si­bly, se­cur­ing a stronger and more pros­per­ous fu­ture for all.”