If var­i­ous doors have opened to T&T with the Prime Min­is­ter’s US trip, ef­forts on the Gov­ern­ment’s trend­ing Drag­on gas “res­ur­rec­tion” will test Venezuela’s doors ahead, even as the project casts a pos­i­tive spot­light over­head on the 2026 Bud­get.

De­spite all that’s passed T&T amid con­tin­u­ing US-Venezuela ten­sions, with the US open­ing for an OFAC li­cence for Drag­on re­boot, Gov­ern­ment’s paving the way to­wards Venezuela talks for the ven­ture.En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal’s stressed that com­ing days would bring talks with all stake­hold­ers–whether Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties, multi­na­tion­als or the US gov­ern­ment–and if and when nec­es­sary, he’d have no dif­fi­cul­ty head­ing to Cara­cas. So did Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on Wednes­day.

Mooni­lal’s sig­nalled how long de­lib­er­a­tions with the US were on­go­ing, cit­ing his Wash­ing­ton trip four months ago. In June, he’d in­di­cat­ed “work­ing with US au­thor­i­ties” and “au­thor­i­ties else­where—in Venezuela—to en­sure com­mon ap­proach ...” But while both have pro­fessed sup­port for Venezue­lans, they’ve ducked on the ques­tion of Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro.

At Thurs­day’s Ko­rea Na­tion­al Day Func­tion, dur­ing salu­ta­tions For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers very ef­fu­sive­ly ad­dressed Venezue­lan Am­bas­sador to T&T, Al­varo En­rique Sánchez Cordero (Diplo­mat Corps Dean), “My good friend, the Venezue­lan Am­bas­sador.”

It’s un­der­stood a T&T team may go to Venezuela for talks (pos­si­bly next week). If so, it’s not nec­es­sar­i­ly why the Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion’s first Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion may be lat­er than her promised “ear­ly Oc­to­ber” Bud­get.

Of­fi­cials cit­ed the length of time for ap­prov­ing state boards and hav­ing en­ti­ties com­plete sub­mis­sions to Fi­nance (whose of­fi­cials had been tip­ping mid-month Bud­get). Work was al­so on to re­duce a pro­ject­ed very high 2026 deficit, down cur­rent­ly to 11 bil­lion, en route to nine.

Of­fi­cials ex­pect the pack­age to be more than the last bud­get’s $59.741B–ap­prox­i­mate­ly $61/2B–a tightrope be­tween cam­paign promis­es, con­straints and con­fi­dence in Gov­ern­ment’s man­age­ment skills.

A tight­ly arranged “good­ie-less” re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion pack­age, mi­nus wastage, is strate­gic to gen­er­at­ing in­come. Whether the lat­ter comes from di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion or new charges is ahead. With cau­tion against pop­ulist pack­age like­ly heed­ed, perks among a bud­get frame­work for stronger fis­cal dis­ci­pline urged by in­ter­na­tion­al en­ti­ties, like­ly in­cludes pro­vi­sions as­sist­ing URP work­ers. So­lu­tions are al­so need­ed for short-term work­ers with the non-re­new­al of con­tracts on.

Apart from de­tail­ing with how the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board fund will be saved, will al­so come pre­lim­i­nary re­port from the Kevin Ram­nar­ine team on the Petrotrin re­fin­ery. So far, in­di­ca­tions are it can be restart­ed, but with US$1-2 bil­lion in­jec­tion.

Fi­nance of­fi­cials said the lat­er Bud­get de­liv­ery date, the big­ger the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a Par­lia­ment de­bate and Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee scruti­ny run­ning in­to week­end work and the Oc­to­ber 20 Di­vali hol­i­day.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s “grand slam” in res­ur­rect­ing the Drag­on deal will be the back­drop for the Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion. But on­ly full re­vival suc­cess may ab­solve her of play­ing so heav­i­ly to US in­ter­ests. And project suc­cess de­pends on the sup­port of Venezuela, which took um­brage to her state­ments fol­low­ing her pro-US pos­tur­ing.

Drag­on’s now run the gamut of movie ma­te­r­i­al: en­ter, die and re­turn. Af­ter Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Op­po­si­tion po­lit­i­cal can­non fod­der, it’s pro­vid­ed a time­ly po­lit­i­cal bar­gain­ing chip for the UNC Gov­ern­ment with the US– in terms of sup­port both ways–and will re­main a po­lit­i­cal item res­ur­rect­ed or re­quiemed.

With US sup­port ex­pressed for a T&T pro­pos­al that doesn’t ben­e­fit the Nico­las Maduro regime, changes will be re­quired from the orig­i­nal deal, which in­clud­ed T&T pay­ing Venezuela roy­al­ty, a spe­cial five per cent com­mis­sion, sur­face tax and so­cial con­tri­bu­tions to­talling US$1 mil­lion.

While ob­serv­ing the un­fold­ing sit­u­a­tion, Venezue­lan sources yes­ter­day de­clared Venezuela’s al­ways been will­ing and ea­ger to co-op­er­ate, es­pe­cial­ly with­in the re­gion, “but such co-op­er­a­tion must be based on re­spect for Venezuela’s sov­er­eign­ty and self-de­ter­mi­na­tion and free from co­er­cion.”

They’ve not­ed that OFAC li­cence de­tails must be seen and point­ed to a T&T court in­junc­tion that pro­ceeds from the field go to Cono­co Phillips, not Venezuela.

Venezuela’s mes­sag­ing yes­ter­day al­so ex­tend­ed to St Vin­cent PM Ralph Gon­salves’ ap­pear­ance along­side Maduro, in­di­rect­ly re­spond­ing to Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s claim the re­gion isn’t a zone of peace.

With the Bud­get be­ing an as­sess­ment of Gov­ern­ment’s per­for­mance, de­bate will al­so be days of very pub­lic test­ing for the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly fierce in the UNC’s last ma­jor op­por­tu­ni­ty to blame the PNM for is­sues. Bat­tle on.