JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Young: Dragon is well on the way

by

644 days ago
20231010
Minister of Energy and Energy Industries Stuart Young speaks during the Budget debate in Parliament yesterday.

Minister of Energy and Energy Industries Stuart Young speaks during the Budget debate in Parliament yesterday.

OFFICE OF THE PARLIAMENT

Se­nior po­lit­i­cal re­porter

The Drag­on nat­ur­al gas agree­ment with Venezuela in­cludes al­lo­ca­tions for do­mes­tic gas as well as LNG. The agree­ment is not on­ly for the pur­suit of Drag­on field gas, but de­tails can’t be giv­en due to con­fi­den­tial­i­ty terms, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said yes­ter­day.

In his con­tri­bu­tion to de­bate on the 2024 Bud­get in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Young al­so said Gov­ern­ment hopes to sign the fi­nal agree­ment on the re­struc­tur­ing of At­lantic, the liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas (LNG) in Point Fortin with­in the next month.

The min­is­ter spent half of his con­tri­bu­tion crit­i­cis­ing the for­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion’s man­age­ment of the en­er­gy sec­tor and list­ing the achieve­ments of the PNM Gov­ern­ment.

Com­ment­ing on Op­po­si­tion ques­tions about the Drag­on field agree­ment with Venezuela, Young point­ed out: “Trinidad and To­ba­go isn’t the on­ly place in­ter­est­ed in Venezuela.

“When I was in Venezuela a cou­ple of weeks ago at PDVSA head­quar­ters, as I walked out of the board­room to strate­gise, there were lit­er­al­ly a num­ber of multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies meet­ing them. There are oth­er coun­tries in the world want­i­ng to do busi­ness with Venezuela, but what we’ve done is man­age the re­la­tion­ship to en­sure we’re the pri­or­i­ty.”

Young said a com­mer­cial term sheet was ne­go­ti­at­ed and signed in 2018.

He dis­missed Op­po­si­tion queries about the many agree­ments signed, point­ing out that this was “be­cause the US put sanc­tions!”.

Young added: “And that’s what stopped it oth­er­wise the Drag­on gas would have been in Trinidad and To­ba­go since 2020! The US put sanc­tions and stopped the project.”

He al­so re­called that the Op­po­si­tion wrote the US seek­ing sanc­tions on him and the Prime Min­is­ter “be­cause they were sup­port­ing ‘Pres­i­dent Guai­do’ and ask­ing why I let Venezue­lan Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go. Thank God I did!”

Young said the agree­ment that was signed be­tween him and Venezuela’s Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple’s Pow­er of Pe­tro­le­um was for the pro­mo­tion of joint projects in the gas hy­dro­car­bon sec­tor.

“And it is not on­ly for Drag­on but al­so as part of that agree­ment ... I can­not get in­to the terms of it since, as hap­pens with all en­er­gy sec­tor com­mer­cial agree­ments, there are terms of con­fi­den­tial­i­ty,” he said

He ex­plained this was be­cause if many par­ties were ne­go­ti­at­ing, Venezuela wouldn’t want each par­ty to know the terms of the deal.

“Drag­on is well on the way,” he de­clared.

Young said the agree­ment is not on­ly for the pur­suit of gas, dis­miss­ing claims it was on­ly for LNG.

“There’s an al­lo­ca­tion for do­mes­tic gas! And we’ve had a num­ber of meet­ings and we’re now ne­go­ti­at­ing the pric­ing,” he said.

On oth­er is­sues, the min­is­ter said the Man­a­tee field, which is part of the Lo­ran-Man­a­tee field be­tween T&T and Venezuela, was part of a uni­ti­sa­tion agree­ment but when the Gov­ern­ment saw what was oc­cur­ring as a re­sult of the US sanc­tions, they ne­go­ti­at­ed and “got Pres­i­dent Maduro to al­low us to pro­duce the Man­a­tee field, so that is go­ing to hap­pen”.

“And it’s on­ly nat­ur­al that Lo­ran will fol­low. In my re­cent dis­cus­sions with the Venezue­lans, and in par­tic­u­lar Pres­i­dent Maduro and Vice Pres­i­dent Ro­driguez, they’re look­ing at Lo­ran com­ing to Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Young said as the Drag­on, Man­a­tee and Ca­lyp­so arrange­ments come on stream, com­pa­nies like Hal­ibur­ton and oth­ers that left will re­turn.

On the At­lantic LNG agree­ment, he said: “Thou­sands of pages are now be­ing re­viewed to a re­struc­tured At­lantic LNG that would mean bet­ter share­hold­ing for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go. We al­so man­aged to ne­go­ti­ate third-par­ty ac­cess to gas so that means that not on­ly NGC, Shell and BP can bring gas to AL­NG in the fu­ture but oth­ers can as well.”

He said that now presents op­por­tu­ni­ties for deep­wa­ter, Wood­side, re­gion­al gas and cross-bor­der gas.

Oth­er en­deav­ours out­lined by Young in­clude a mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing and meet­ings with Suri­name, the Lara so­lar project, the pur­suit of wind for elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion and the first green hy­dro­gen project.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored

Today's
Guardian

Publications

Shastri Boodan

Shastri Boodan

Apsara inspires youth through culture

9 hours ago
Dr Mariama Alleyne

Dr Mariama Alleyne

Dr Mariama Alleyne

Dr Mariama Alleyne

Dr Mariama Alleyne: Global Hero of Hope supports cancer survivors

Yesterday
During my consultation with Ms Brafit CEO Nicole Joseph-Chin, what was supposed to be a simple mastectomy bra fitting became something much deeper. Her thoughtful questions unlocked emotions I didn’t even realise I was holding in. She comforted, reassured, and helped me face the truth of what was coming. That bra wasn’t just clothing—it was the first real symbol of life after surgery.

During my consultation with Ms Brafit CEO Nicole Joseph-Chin, what was supposed to be a simple mastectomy bra fitting became something much deeper. Her thoughtful questions unlocked emotions I didn’t even realise I was holding in. She comforted, reassured, and helped me face the truth of what was coming. That bra wasn’t just clothing—it was the first real symbol of life after surgery.

During my consultation with Ms Brafit CEO Nicole Joseph-Chin, what was supposed to be a simple mastectomy bra fitting became something much deeper. Her thoughtful questions unlocked emotions I didn’t even realise I was holding in. She comforted, reassured, and helped me face the truth of what was coming. That bra wasn’t just clothing—it was the first real symbol of life after surgery.

During my consultation with Ms Brafit CEO Nicole Joseph-Chin, what was supposed to be a simple mastectomy bra fitting became something much deeper. Her thoughtful questions unlocked emotions I didn’t even realise I was holding in. She comforted, reassured, and helped me face the truth of what was coming. That bra wasn’t just clothing—it was the first real symbol of life after surgery.

Standing on business, not pity: My fight begins–Part 2

Yesterday
Gillian de Souza graces the cover of the book: Minding Their Own Business: Five Female Leaders From Trinidad and Tobago authored by Trini-American Joanne Kilgour Dowdy, Professor of Literacy Studies at the College of Education Health and Human Services at Kent State University.

Gillian de Souza graces the cover of the book: Minding Their Own Business: Five Female Leaders From Trinidad and Tobago authored by Trini-American Joanne Kilgour Dowdy, Professor of Literacy Studies at the College of Education Health and Human Services at Kent State University.

Gillian de Souza graces the cover of the book: Minding Their Own Business: Five Female Leaders From Trinidad and Tobago authored by Trini-American Joanne Kilgour Dowdy, Professor of Literacy Studies at the College of Education Health and Human Services at Kent State University.

Gillian de Souza graces the cover of the book: Minding Their Own Business: Five Female Leaders From Trinidad and Tobago authored by Trini-American Joanne Kilgour Dowdy, Professor of Literacy Studies at the College of Education Health and Human Services at Kent State University.

Gillian de Souza’s American culinary journey springs from T&T roots

Yesterday