Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has dis­missed Op­po­si­tion crit­i­cism of the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of en­er­gy ne­go­ti­a­tions with Venezuela, in­sist­ing that ac­tive dis­cus­sions re­main on­go­ing and that Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to work close­ly with ma­jor en­er­gy stake­hold­ers to ad­vance cross-bor­der gas projects.

Speak­ing dur­ing de­bate on the Fi­nance Bill 2026 in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day, Dr Mooni­lal re­spond­ed di­rect­ly to con­cerns raised by for­mer prime min­is­ter and for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young, who ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of fail­ing to en­gage mean­ing­ful­ly with Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties on mat­ters crit­i­cal to the coun­try’s en­er­gy fu­ture.

Dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to the de­bate, Young ar­gued that the Gov­ern­ment’s in­abil­i­ty to di­rect­ly en­gage de­ci­sion-mak­ers in Venezuela was plac­ing T&T at a dis­ad­van­tage in on­go­ing en­er­gy ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Young con­tend­ed that T&T was be­ing ex­clud­ed from key dis­cus­sions on gas al­lo­ca­tion and pric­ing and was in­stead be­ing forced to re­ly on multi­na­tion­al en­er­gy com­pa­nies to ne­go­ti­ate on its be­half.

“The fact is no­body here is per­sona non gra­ta, and how it hurts Trinidad and To­ba­go is if you are not sit­ting at the ta­ble where the de­ci­sions are be­ing made, you will not get the best deal for Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Young fur­ther claimed that the coun­try was be­ing left to ac­cept terms ne­go­ti­at­ed by multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions.

“So I know as a fact what Trinidad and To­ba­go is be­ing sad­dled with is what­ev­er the multi­na­tion­als, what­ev­er Shell and BP tell them they have to take, be­cause they’re not sit­ting at the ta­ble with the peo­ple who own the gas and are de­ter­min­ing al­lo­ca­tion of gas, cost of gas, price of gas, who will get it and where it will go,” he said.

Young has re­peat­ed­ly warned in re­cent months that T&T risks be­ing mar­gin­alised in ne­go­ti­a­tions in­volv­ing Venezue­lan gas if the Gov­ern­ment leaves dis­cus­sions pri­mar­i­ly in the hands of multi­na­tion­al en­er­gy com­pa­nies.

In re­sponse, Dr Mooni­lal re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that the Gov­ern­ment was ab­sent from the process, say­ing sub­stan­tial work was be­ing con­duct­ed through tech­ni­cal meet­ings and on­go­ing en­gage­ment with in­dus­try part­ners.

“We are work­ing with our part­ners and every sin­gle week we get a re­port. In this case, it is our lega­cy part­ners, BP and Shell. We are work­ing with them, NGC is work­ing with them and with the of­fi­cials in Venezuela,” Mooni­lal said.

The min­is­ter crit­i­cised what he de­scribed as a cul­ture of equat­ing over­seas trav­el and pho­to op­por­tu­ni­ties with ef­fec­tive diplo­ma­cy.

“This no­tion that some­how you have to board a jum­bo plane, a jet plane, and land in some coun­try and take out 25 pic­tures and that means you’re work­ing. But if you are in Trinidad, you are in touch with peo­ple on a dai­ly ba­sis, you are con­duct­ing meet­ings, busi­ness, do­ing all the tech­ni­cal work, you’re not work­ing. That’s not con­sid­ered work.”

Dr Mooni­lal al­so took aim at the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion, say­ing ex­ten­sive in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el had failed to de­liv­er mean­ing­ful re­sults for the coun­try.

The En­er­gy Min­is­ter main­tained that en­er­gy projects in­volv­ing Venezuela re­main on the ta­ble de­spite geopo­lit­i­cal chal­lenges and con­tin­ued un­cer­tain­ty sur­round­ing in­ter­na­tion­al sanc­tions.

The Gov­ern­ment has con­sis­tent­ly said it re­mains com­mit­ted to pur­su­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties linked to Venezue­lan gas re­serves as it seeks to ad­dress de­clin­ing do­mes­tic gas pro­duc­tion.

Dr Mooni­lal al­so used his con­tri­bu­tion to pro­vide an up­date on the fu­ture of the Petrotrin re­fin­ery, re­veal­ing that the Gov­ern­ment has re­ceived sig­nif­i­cant in­ter­est from po­ten­tial in­vestors.