Next week En­er­gy Min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan will be lead­ing a four-mem­ber team to Venezuela to sign the agree­ment on the uni­ti­sa­tion of cross bor­der gas re­serves be­tween the two coun­tries. "Cab­i­net ap­proved a vis­it to Venezuela on the oc­ca­sion of the ex­change of in­stru­ments of rat­i­fi­ca­tion of the frame­work treaty re­lat­ing to the uni­ti­sa­tion of hy­dro­car­bon re­serves that ex­tend the de­mar­ca­tion lines of T&T and Venezuela.

"For some time we have had ne­go­ti­a­tions on­go­ing for that Lo­ran/Man­a­tee Treaty so I am pleased to say that we are go­ing to Venezuela on Sun­day and will be sign­ing the uni­ti­sa­tion agree­ment on Mon­day. This has been un­der dis­cus­sion for the past 20 years in terms of this cross-bor­der field," she said. She said this yes­ter­day at the post-Cab­i­net press con­fer­ence at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, St Clair. She said the treaty out­lines how the field will be di­vid­ed up be­tween the two coun­tries.

"We have agreed that 74 per cent of field will go to Venezuela and the bal­ance will go to T&T. Al­so we have is­sues of how to de­cide the ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion com­pa­nies as well as one unit op­er­a­tor for that cross bor­der field and in the agree­ment we have mech­a­nisms to de­cide that. The Ry­der Scott re­port had de­ter­mined that we have close to 1.2 Tril­lion Cu­bic Feet (TCF) on our side. Af­ter we sign off we will be­gin pro­duc­ing from the field."