Venezuela is mov­ing ahead with plans to send ap­prox­i­mate­ly sev­en tril­lion cu­bic feet of nat­ur­al gas to Trinidad and To­ba­go for pro­cess­ing, as work ad­vances on the cross-bor­der Lo­ran-Man­a­tee gas field.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar shared a trans­lat­ed an­nounce­ment from Act­ing Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez on so­cial me­dia, de­scrib­ing the de­vel­op­ment as a ma­jor step in en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the two coun­tries.

Ro­dríguez said BP, UAE-based XRG and Qatar-based UCC Hold­ing have joined Phase Two of the Lo­ran gas field af­ter sign­ing the rel­e­vant li­cence with Venezuela. Phase One was pre­vi­ous­ly signed with Shell.

The Lo­ran field is lo­cat­ed ad­ja­cent to the Man­a­tee field on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s side of the mar­itime bor­der.

Ro­dríguez said the project could help Venezuela boost nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion and even­tu­al­ly be­come a gas-ex­port­ing coun­try.

She al­so said the gas flow­ing across the bor­der could ben­e­fit Trinidad and To­ba­go and oth­er coun­tries through shared de­vel­op­ment and in­dus­tri­al ac­tiv­i­ty.