En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has an­nounced that he will lead a small, high-lev­el del­e­ga­tion to Wash­ing­ton DC from May 28-30 for a se­ries of strate­gic meet­ings aimed at deep­en­ing T&T’s en­er­gy ties with the Unit­ed States.

Dur­ing yes­ter­day’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing at the Red House, Mooni­lal said the talks will in­clude en­gage­ments with se­nior of­fi­cials from the US De­part­ment of En­er­gy, the De­part­ment of State and oth­ers.

“The meet­ings in the Unit­ed States we pro­pose to at­tend to next week will share our views and en­gage in se­ri­ous di­a­logue with sig­nif­i­cant of­fi­cials in the Unit­ed States in Wash­ing­ton DC.”

The T&T del­e­ga­tion is al­so sched­uled to hold talks with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Shell, one of the coun­try’s ma­jor en­er­gy part­ners. 

“In the Unit­ed States, we will al­so en­gage with se­nior of­fi­cials apart from the state trea­sury and en­er­gy but al­so with of­fi­cials from Shell Glob­al, the Amer­i­c­as Coun­cil, the In­ter-Amer­i­can di­a­logue. We will meet se­nior of­fi­cials from those or­gan­i­sa­tions to dis­cuss with them our mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial in­ter­ests in the area of se­cu­ri­ty it comes as every­one knows we in­her­it­ed an en­er­gy sec­tor in sig­nif­i­cant de­cline.”

Min­is­ter Mooni­lal said the dis­cus­sions will al­so fo­cus on strength­en­ing bi­lat­er­al co­op­er­a­tion, ex­plor­ing in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties, and ad­vanc­ing T&T’s role as a key en­er­gy play­er in the hemi­sphere.

“This is a very im­por­tant mis­sion in keep­ing with our strate­gic fo­cus as out­lined by our Prime Min­is­ter to en­sure that Trinidad and To­ba­go re-emerge as the en­er­gy hub of the Caribbean.” 

It is al­so ex­pect­ed that talks will cov­er on­go­ing joint ven­tures and the po­ten­tial for ex­pand­ed up­stream and down­stream col­lab­o­ra­tion.

The Wash­ing­ton vis­it will mark the first of­fi­cial US trip by Min­is­ter Mooni­lal in his cur­rent port­fo­lio.

Yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar met with of­fi­cials from the US Em­bassy in Port-of-Spain led by Chargé d’Af­faires Dr Jenifer Nei­d­hart de Or­tiz. 

In a re­lat­ed de­vel­op­ment, Mooni­lal re­vealed the gov­ern­ment of Guyana has in­formed this coun­try that its en­er­gy of­fi­cials are seek­ing to part­ner with their coun­ter­parts to re­vive a joint work­ing group fo­cused on en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion. 

“The very first thing they raised was to re­sus­ci­tate what was called then a work­ing group, it was es­tab­lished sev­er­al years ago and al­lowed to col­lapse and reach a state of in­ac­tion where noth­ing hap­pened.”

The move sig­nals re­newed re­gion­al ef­forts to fos­ter strate­gic en­er­gy part­ner­ships.

Mooni­lal al­so said in­for­mal dis­cus­sions have been held with en­er­gy of­fi­cials from Grena­da and that a trip is planned to fur­ther talks. He, how­ev­er, lament­ed what he not­ed was a lack of di­a­logue with re­gion­al stake­hold­ers to ad­vance en­er­gy-re­lat­ed mat­ters.

“Un­til to­day, Trinidad and To­ba­go, be­lieve it or not, the gov­ern­ment played no role in the en­er­gy sec­tor in those ter­ri­to­ries that are now be­com­ing glob­al play­ers. What hap­pened is that the pri­vate sec­tor of their own work, own vo­li­tion, by virtue of their own net­work­ing skills and  pro­fes­sion­al con­duct, they got in­volved in those sec­tors with no help from the gov­ern­ment, so the gov­ern­ment nev­er had no foot­print.”

In a re­sponse yes­ter­day, for­mer prime min­is­ter and en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young said: “For those who may have missed this. Rep­re­sent­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go and com­menc­ing the dis­cus­sions and build­ing of a very good re­la­tion­ship with the Gov­ern­ment of Suri­name in 2022. A re­la­tion­ship that was strength­ened over the last three years with an em­pha­sis on the en­er­gy sec­tor. The gov­ern­ment will not be al­lowed to mis­lead the pop­u­la­tion or to rewrite his­to­ry.”