Raphael John-Lall

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s de­c­la­ra­tion that she “loves” Venezuela’s act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez, cou­pled with her sug­ges­tion that the two could meet at the Unit­ed Na­tions lat­er this month, has sparked ques­tions in that coun­try about Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ne­go­ti­at­ing po­si­tion with Cara­cas on en­er­gy mat­ters.

Re­spond­ing to Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­ments yes­ter­day, Venezue­lan en­er­gy con­sul­tant Dr Ein­stein Mil­lán Ar­cia told Guardian Me­dia that the Prime Min­is­ter’s con­cil­ia­to­ry tone re­flects prag­ma­tism and the ur­gent need for ac­cess to Venezuela’s en­er­gy re­sources, par­tic­u­lar­ly nat­ur­al gas.

Mil­lán Ar­cia, who served as a per­son­al ad­vis­er to for­mer Venezue­lan Oil min­is­ter Nel­son Martínez be­tween 2016 and 2017, said Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s out­reach sig­nals a shift in ap­proach as her ad­min­is­tra­tion seeks clos­er en­gage­ment with Ro­dríguez.

He al­so ques­tioned the sig­nif­i­cance of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers’ re­cent vis­it to Cara­cas, not­ing that the T&T del­e­ga­tion was re­ceived at the air­port by Venezuela’s Deputy For­eign Min­is­ter for the Caribbean, Raúl Li Causi, rather than by Ro­dríguez her­self.

“It is as­ton­ish­ing how in­ter­est and ne­ces­si­ty can make Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar swal­low her own words. Gone are the days when she in­sist­ed that she did not need Venezue­lan gas or oil,” Mil­lán Ar­cia said.

He ar­gued that the Gov­ern­ment could have strength­ened its po­si­tion by dis­patch­ing a high­er-lev­el en­er­gy del­e­ga­tion, in­clud­ing the En­er­gy Min­is­ter, to en­gage di­rect­ly with Ro­dríguez and Venezuela’s Hy­dro­car­bons Min­is­ter.

Asked whether Venezuela’s Na­tion­al As­sem­bly might re­voke Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s cur­rent per­sona non gra­ta sta­tus, Mil­lán Ar­cia said any de­ci­sion would de­pend on the out­come of dis­cus­sions be­tween the two coun­tries.

“It is pos­si­ble, al­though it def­i­nite­ly de­pends on mu­tu­al in­ter­ests, and par­tic­u­lar­ly on what T&T has to of­fer Venezuela in gen­er­al and Del­cy Ro­dríguez in par­tic­u­lar, which does not ap­pear to be much. The for­mal ges­ture will de­pend on how the agen­da pro­gress­es in prac­tice. It could take months or years, or it might not hap­pen at all be­cause of Venezuela’s dif­fi­cult po­lit­i­cal cir­cum­stances.”

En­er­gy talks deep­en

At the end of Au­gust, Venezuela re­ac­ti­vat­ed a high-lev­el tech­ni­cal com­mit­tee to over­see the Drag­on Gas project and agreed to es­tab­lish bi­na­tion­al work­ing groups in­volv­ing of­fi­cials from both coun­tries as the ven­ture moves in­to its ex­e­cu­tion phase.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal via What­sApp yes­ter­day for ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion on the lat­est de­vel­op­ments but re­ceived no re­sponse.

Ac­cord­ing to a state­ment from Venezuela’s Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs, an in­ter-in­sti­tu­tion­al meet­ing at the min­istry’s head­quar­ters was led by Ma­jor Gen­er­al Ger­ar­do Izquier­do Tor­res. Dur­ing the meet­ing, of­fi­cials rat­i­fied a roadmap tar­get­ing De­cem­ber 2026 for the for­mal restart of op­er­a­tions at the off­shore field, with the ac­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion of Shell Venezuela SA.

Mil­lán Ar­cia said fi­nal de­tails re­gard­ing gas vol­umes and des­ti­na­tion mar­kets re­main un­der dis­cus­sion, but cau­tioned that the even­tu­al arrange­ment may not max­imise T&T’s eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits in the short to medi­um term.

Venezue­lan me­dia’s re­ac­tion

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ex­pres­sion of “love” for Ro­dríguez al­so drew at­ten­tion from Venezue­lan me­dia out­lets yes­ter­day.

On­line news­pa­per Di­ario Ver­sión Fi­nal car­ried the head­line: “Trinidad’s Prime Min­is­ter ex­press­es her ‘love’ for Del­cy: seeks rap­proche­ment with Venezuela.”

El Públi­co TV re­port­ed: “The Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go says she ‘loves’ Del­cy Ro­dríguez and pro­pos­es a meet­ing with the Venezue­lan pres­i­dent.”

Mean­while, El Uni­ver­sal pub­lished the head­line: “The Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go said she hopes to meet with Del­cy Ro­dríguez.”

State-run news agency Agen­cia Vene­zolana de Noti­cias car­ried a sim­i­lar re­port un­der the head­line: “The Prime Min­is­ter of T&T hopes to meet Del­cy Ro­dríguez.”