An­drea Perez-Sobers

As T&T deep­ens its en­gage­ment in cross-bor­der hy­dro­car­bon de­vel­op­ment, re­cent geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela cast a long shad­ow over projects cen­tral to T&T’s en­er­gy fu­ture.

While the Prime Min­is­ter’s en­dorse­ment of the US mil­i­tary pres­ence in the Caribbean has sparked re­gion­al de­bate, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr. Roodal Mooni­lal has stepped for­ward to con­tex­tu­alise T&T’s po­si­tion, un­der­scor­ing con­ti­nu­ity in na­tion­al pol­i­cy and a prag­mat­ic pur­suit of long-term en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty.

Speak­ing Tues­day on the is­sue to the Busi­ness Guardian, Dr Mooni­lal re­mind­ed the pub­lic that “the mat­ter of the cross-bor­der fields be­tween Venezuela and T&T has been a sub­ject of ne­go­ti­a­tions for sev­er­al years, maybe sev­er­al decades now.” He not­ed that while the cur­rent stand­off be­tween Wash­ing­ton and Cara­cas is not new, the in­ter­sec­tion of mil­i­tary con­cerns with en­er­gy diplo­ma­cy has cre­at­ed a volatile back­drop for crit­i­cal ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Bal­anc­ing se­cu­ri­ty with sov­er­eign­ty

Mooni­lal ac­knowl­edged that na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns es­pe­cial­ly in re­la­tion to drug and hu­man traf­fick­ing ne­ces­si­tate in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion.

“We will con­tin­ue our work with in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners and gov­ern­ments to en­sure that we ad­vance our eco­nom­ic and de­vel­op­men­tal in­ter­ests in the en­er­gy sec­tor,” he said, reaf­firm­ing the state’s po­si­tion against crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty un­der­min­ing re­gion­al sta­bil­i­ty.

In a point­ed re­minder of pol­i­cy con­ti­nu­ity, he not­ed that the Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion had signed agree­ments fa­cil­i­tat­ing US mil­i­tary co­op­er­a­tion in the re­gion in De­cem­ber 2024, well be­fore the cur­rent es­ca­la­tion over Venezuela and Guyana’s bor­der dis­pute. Mooni­lal framed re­cent de­vel­op­ments as a reaf­fir­ma­tion, not a de­par­ture, from Trinidad and To­ba­go’s es­tab­lished se­cu­ri­ty stance.

How­ev­er, he was quick to draw a line: while T&T col­lab­o­rates on se­cu­ri­ty is­sues, it must al­so pre­serve space for di­a­logue with Venezuela.

“Ad­vance­ment in di­a­logue and our eco­nom­ic part­ner­ship with the Unit­ed States, Venezuela, and our multi­na­tion­al part­ners is ben­e­fi­cial not on­ly to T&T, but to oth­er gov­ern­ments as well.”

One en­er­gy ex­pert, who wished to re­main anony­mous, said T&T’s overt sup­port of the US mil­i­tary, an­nounced by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on Sat­ur­day, rep­re­sents a no­table shift in the re­gion’s se­cu­ri­ty dy­nam­ics.

While framed as part of the wider fight against transna­tion­al crime, in­clud­ing the traf­fick­ing of drugs, firearms, and hu­man be­ings, the ex­pert said the de­ci­sion may have un­in­tend­ed con­se­quences for key cross-bor­der en­er­gy projects.

“At the cen­tre of con­cern are two ma­jor gas fields: the Drag­on gas field, with an es­ti­mat­ed 3.2 tril­lion cu­bic feet (TCF) of re­serves, and the Cocuina field, which holds an ad­di­tion­al 1.2 TCF. Both projects are sub­ject to ap­proval from the US Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC) due to long­stand­ing sanc­tions against Venezuela,” the En­er­gy ex­pert de­tailed

The ex­pert agreed that the US can play a piv­otal role in coun­ter­ing il­lic­it net­works op­er­at­ing across the Caribbean.

How­ev­er, the an­a­lysts warned that any per­cep­tion of mil­i­tary align­ment against Venezuela could com­pli­cate Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ef­forts to de­vel­op joint hy­dro­car­bon ven­tures with its neigh­bour.

On the pos­i­tive side, the ex­pert in­di­cat­ed that clos­er align­ment with US strate­gic ob­jec­tives may stream­line ac­cess to OFAC li­cences, po­ten­tial­ly ac­cel­er­at­ing the roll­out of these en­er­gy projects and boost­ing T&T’s gas out­put at a crit­i­cal time for the in­dus­try, but stat­ed the risks are just as sig­nif­i­cant.

Sources close to the en­er­gy sec­tor sug­gest Cara­cas may re­con­sid­er its fu­ture col­lab­o­ra­tion with T&T if it views Port of Spain’s se­cu­ri­ty po­si­tion as hos­tile or po­lit­i­cal­ly aligned with Wash­ing­ton’s agen­da. This could re­sult in stalled ne­go­ti­a­tions, de­lays in project ex­e­cu­tion or even full aban­don­ment of re­source-shar­ing agree­ments.

“More broad­ly, any es­ca­la­tion of US-Venezuela ten­sions, par­tic­u­lar­ly mil­i­tary ac­tion, could desta­bilise the re­gion and spark in­creased mi­gra­tion from Venezuela. Trinidad and To­ba­go, al­ready a front­line state in the on­go­ing mi­gra­tion cri­sis, may face ad­di­tion­al so­cial and eco­nom­ic pres­sure from a po­ten­tial in­flux of refugees. Ob­servers say the fu­ture of cross-bor­der en­er­gy de­vel­op­ment will de­pend on T&T’s abil­i­ty to strike a del­i­cate bal­ance: en­gag­ing in se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion to pro­tect its bor­ders, while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly ad­vanc­ing diplo­mat­ic and eco­nom­ic ties with both Venezuela and the Unit­ed States,”sources said.

En­er­gy ex­pert An­tho­ny Paul, on Mon­day ex­plained that the im­me­di­ate out­come is that noth­ing has changed be­cause the sanc­tions put on by the US Gov­ern­ment have not changed, not­ing that these are the ones are caus­ing the de­lay of the Drag­on Gas op­er­a­tions.

‘The Man­a­tee has two sides. Trinidad-on­ly gas and uni­tised gas. Again, the US sanc­tions have stopped the uni­tised gas from com­ing, so the Trinidad-on­ly gas will con­tin­ue to come. In oth­er words, there’s no short-term change in that sit­u­a­tion. Longer term, it de­pends on how the T&T and Venezuela re­la­tion­ship plays out over time, and who knows how that will play out. So it’s hard to say,” Paul fur­ther ex­plained.

He re­it­er­at­ed that at the mo­ment, the im­me­di­ate im­pact is no dif­fer­ent on those spe­cif­ic projects.

Paul, how­ev­er, not­ed that over the decades, the diplo­mat­ic re­la­tion­ship be­tween T&T and Venezuela has been “ex­treme­ly good.”

On whether these re­la­tions could change giv­en the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion’s sup­port for the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion, Paul said this coun­try’s re­la­tion­ship with Venezuela is based on diplo­ma­cy, but if that diplo­mat­ic land­scape changes, then the re­la­tion­ship could change.

Wikipedia back­ground on Lo­ran-Man­a­tee

The Lo­ran-Man­a­tee field, joint­ly owned by Venezuela and T&T, strad­dles the mar­itime bor­der be­tween the two na­tions. With es­ti­mat­ed gas re­serves ex­ceed­ing 10 TCF, it was once seen as a flag­ship project for re­gion­al en­er­gy in­te­gra­tion.

How­ev­er, due to pro­tract­ed US sanc­tions and lim­it­ed diplo­mat­ic progress, the project stalled. In 2020, T&T opt­ed to de­vel­op its por­tion of the Man­a­tee field in­de­pen­dent­ly, while the Venezue­lan side, Lo­ran, re­mains un­de­vel­oped.

This de­cou­pling re­flect­ed a strate­gic piv­ot to safe­guard na­tion­al in­ter­ests amid geopo­lit­i­cal grid­lock. Still, it al­so high­lights the com­plex bal­anc­ing act re­quired: se­cur­ing in­vest­ment and de­vel­op­ment while main­tain­ing po­lit­i­cal neu­tral­i­ty and re­gion­al good­will.

An­a­lysts main­tain that for Trinidad and To­ba­go, the path for­ward is one that de­mands sur­gi­cal diplo­ma­cy.

Align­ment with US strate­gic ob­jec­tives could ex­pe­dite OFAC li­cens­ing and breathe life in­to de­layed cross-bor­der projects. But over­step­ping could alien­ate Venezuela, risk­ing the very co­op­er­a­tion re­quired to mon­e­tise these off­shore as­sets.

As it stands, T&T must walk a fine line, lever­ag­ing US good­will with­out burn­ing bridges with Cara­cas. Trans­par­ent en­gage­ment, re­gion­al lead­er­ship, and a fo­cus on mu­tu­al ben­e­fits will be crit­i­cal if the coun­try is to un­lock its cross-bor­der gas po­ten­tial while main­tain­ing geopo­lit­i­cal equi­lib­ri­um.