Mick­ela Pan­day

For many cit­i­zens, the “Drag­on gas deal” is a phrase of­ten re­peat­ed in head­lines with­out much ex­pla­na­tion. But if we are to have an hon­est dis­cus­sion about our coun­try’s eco­nom­ic fu­ture, it is im­por­tant to un­der­stand where it came from, why it mat­ters, and what it means for us now.

The Drag­on field is a nat­ur­al gas re­serve lo­cat­ed just across our mar­itime bor­der in Venezue­lan wa­ters. It is es­ti­mat­ed to hold over four tril­lion cu­bic feet of nat­ur­al gas, enough to help re­sus­ci­tate Trinidad and To­ba­go’s strug­gling en­er­gy sec­tor, which has suf­fered for years from de­clin­ing do­mes­tic re­serves. The idea of tap­ping in­to Drag­on dates back al­most two decades, with suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments pur­su­ing it as a po­ten­tial life­line.

But the project has nev­er been straight­for­ward. Venezuela’s state-owned com­pa­ny, PDVSA, is a joint part­ner, and the coun­try re­mains un­der heavy Unit­ed States sanc­tions. Any deal, there­fore, re­quires spe­cial li­cences from the US Trea­sury’s Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC).

In 2018, dis­cus­sions ad­vanced sig­nif­i­cant­ly, on­ly to stall when US-Venezuela re­la­tions de­te­ri­o­rat­ed fur­ther. In 2023, PDVSA grant­ed Shell and our own Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny a 30-year li­cence, but that too could not move for­ward with­out US ap­proval. Ear­li­er this year, the US re­voked the spe­cial li­cences, plung­ing the project in­to un­cer­tain­ty once more.

It is against this back­drop that last week’s an­nounce­ment, that Wash­ing­ton has once again agreed to sup­port the Drag­on gas ini­tia­tive, must be un­der­stood. The Gov­ern­ment has hailed the de­vel­op­ment as a tri­umph of diplo­ma­cy, promis­ing re­newed hope for our gas-de­pen­dent econ­o­my. But is it re­al­ly hope, or is it sim­ply a re­turn to the same old de­pen­den­cy that has kept our na­tion trapped for decades?

Drag­on gas could pro­vide short-term re­lief. Our LNG sec­tor, petro­chem­i­cals in­dus­try, and over­all fis­cal po­si­tion are all un­der strain be­cause lo­cal re­serves are run­ning down. If the project suc­ceeds, it may buy us time. But time for what? That is the crit­i­cal ques­tion.

The Venezue­lan fac­tor makes this deal in­her­ent­ly frag­ile. Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro re­mains un­der sanc­tions, his gov­ern­ment is po­lit­i­cal­ly iso­lat­ed, and his econ­o­my con­tin­ues to de­te­ri­o­rate. Any cross-bor­der en­er­gy project in­volv­ing Venezuela will al­ways be hostage to shift­ing geopol­i­tics be­tween Wash­ing­ton and Cara­cas. The OFAC li­cence re­new­al may be good news to­day, but to­mor­row’s head­lines could bring an­oth­er re­ver­sal. This is not a foun­da­tion up­on which to build long-term na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

More trou­bling is what the re­newed li­cence re­veals about our own pri­or­i­ties. In op­po­si­tion, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of­ten crit­i­cised the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) for fail­ing to di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my. Yet in gov­ern­ment, her ear­ly fo­cus has been over­whelm­ing­ly en­er­gy-cen­tred, on deep­wa­ter ex­plo­ration, cross-bor­der gas, and hy­dro­car­bon diplo­ma­cy. To date, there has been lit­tle mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tion about gen­uine di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion. It is as if we have learnt noth­ing from fifty years of re­source de­pen­den­cy.

Both ma­jor par­ties are guilty. The PNM spent a decade chas­ing Drag­on, boast­ing of li­cences and off­shore finds, while our econ­o­my stag­nat­ed. Now this Gov­ern­ment risks re­peat­ing the same mis­take, hold­ing up Drag­on as a prize while sidelin­ing every oth­er sec­tor.

We can­not con­tin­ue this cy­cle of en­er­gy booms that fill the trea­sury and painful busts that leave us scram­bling. The dan­ger is that Drag­on gas be­comes yet an­oth­er ex­cuse to de­lay the hard de­ci­sions re­quired to build a mod­ern, re­silient econ­o­my that is not chained to oil and gas.

The up­com­ing na­tion­al bud­get will be a test. If this Gov­ern­ment is se­ri­ous about change, it must demon­strate that rev­enues from Drag­on, should they ever flow, would be in­vest­ed in sec­tors that can sus­tain us long af­ter the last mol­e­cule of gas has been sold.

What might this look like in prac­tice? Con­crete com­mit­ments to re­new­able en­er­gy, so­lar, wind, and green hy­dro­gen that can po­si­tion us as a re­gion­al leader in the tran­si­tion to clean­er fu­els. Se­ri­ous in­vest­ment in agri­cul­ture and food se­cu­ri­ty, so we re­duce de­pen­dence on volatile glob­al sup­ply chains. In­vest­ment in tech­nol­o­gy and cre­ative in­dus­tries that har­ness the tal­ent of our young peo­ple. Pro­grammes to add val­ue to our man­u­fac­tur­ing base and to strength­en SMEs. None of this is new. Econ­o­mists, civ­il so­ci­ety and or­di­nary cit­i­zens have been call­ing for it for years. What is miss­ing is the po­lit­i­cal will to act.

At the same time, trans­paren­cy must be non-ne­go­tiable. En­er­gy agree­ments, in­clud­ing the Drag­on deal, should not be shroud­ed in se­cre­cy. Cit­i­zens have a right to see the terms, to un­der­stand what ben­e­fits we can re­al­is­ti­cal­ly ex­pect, and to hold Gov­ern­ment ac­count­able for de­liv­ery.

T&T has reached a cross­roads. The Drag­on li­cence is not a panacea; it is, at best, a tem­po­rary re­prieve. The re­al ques­tion is whether our lead­ers will use that re­prieve to trans­form the econ­o­my or squan­der it by cling­ing to the false com­fort of hy­dro­car­bons.

For the sake of fu­ture gen­er­a­tions, this bud­get must mark the be­gin­ning of a dif­fer­ent path. Drag­on gas should not be a dis­trac­tion from di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion. It should be the wake-up call that forces us to fi­nal­ly con­front the re­al­i­ty that oil and gas alone can­not se­cure our fu­ture.

Mick­ela Pan­day is the po­lit­i­cal leader of the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front and an at­tor­ney.