Gail Alexan­der &

Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Shell, which has been T&T’s part­ner in the Drag­on gas deal, is re­main­ing silent on the lat­est move to re­vive the project.

Yes­ter­day, the com­pa­ny di­rect­ed all queries re­gard­ing the re­vival to the Gov­ern­ment.

On Tues­day, the Gov­ern­ment an­nounced that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had se­cured US sup­port for the de­vel­op­ment of T&T’s hy­dro­car­bon cross-bor­der re­sources. This sup­port was ob­tained dur­ing dis­cus­sions in Wash­ing­ton with US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio. The Gov­ern­ment was lat­er in­formed that Ru­bio backs the ap­proval of the rel­e­vant Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC) li­cences to be­gin dis­cus­sions on de­vel­op­ing the cross-bor­der hy­dro­car­bons.

So far, there has been no of­fi­cial word from Venezuela on its stance re­gard­ing the project.

Shell has been the State’s part­ner in the Drag­on gas field project, which the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion had pur­sued. The project was pro­ject­ed to ex­port gas from the Drag­on Field in Venezuela to Shell’s Hi­bis­cus plat­form off T&T’s North Coast.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Shell’s Com­mu­ni­ca­tions de­part­ment stat­ed, “Our of­fi­cial po­si­tion at this point is that queries on the OFAC li­cence are to be di­rect­ed to the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal ex­pressed high op­ti­mism about pos­i­tive out­comes. Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar is ex­pect­ed to pro­vide fur­ther de­tails to­day on the is­sue and oth­er mat­ters from her re­cent US trip, fol­low­ing her re­turn home last night.

Mean­while, NATUC gen­er­al sec­re­tary Michael An­nisette con­grat­u­lat­ed the Gov­ern­ment.

“This comes at a very op­por­tune time, com­fort­ing news amid T&T’s fi­nan­cial and eco­nom­ic con­straints. We must thank the Gov­ern­ment for get­ting it back on the ta­ble,” he said.

“It’s a de­vel­op­ment that’s ab­solute­ly need­ed if we are to in­crease Forex stock and rev­enue. The past gov­ern­ment said they would have re­alised it by 2027, so we now need to know when the project will be re­alised, as it’s crit­i­cal for T&T.”

Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers pres­i­dent Vivek Char­ran wel­comed the news.

“The con­fed­er­a­tion wel­comes any news that the Drag­on Gas project could be­come a re­al­i­ty. Giv­en chang­ing glob­al for­eign pol­i­cy and diplo­ma­cy in the short term, it ap­pears the USA is and has been the de­cider in grant­i­ng the li­cense,” he said.

“As elu­sive and frag­ile as grant­i­ng has been in the past, the li­cense emerged, was killed, and now has risen again through the diplo­mat­ic in­ter­face of the new ad­min­is­tra­tion. It’s nonethe­less of great im­por­tance to our en­er­gy sec­tor in the short and long run. Now that the im­me­di­ate fu­ture of Petrotrin still hangs in the bal­ance, as a re­fin­ery com­mit­tee was formed, there is much at stake giv­en our present eco­nom­ic cir­cum­stances,” Char­ran added.

Far­ley: Don’t leave out To­ba­go

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has al­so wel­comed the re­turn of the Drag­on gas project, call­ing it good news for the coun­try’s econ­o­my but stress­ing that To­ba­go must al­so be in­clud­ed in the en­er­gy plan.

Au­gus­tine, speak­ing af­ter a me­dia tour of the Cour­land Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant yes­ter­day, said the project’s re­vival is vi­tal for the econ­o­my, and re­mind­ed To­bag­o­ni­ans that he had warned about the po­ten­tial fall­out when the deal ap­peared to be lost.

“Well, it’s no se­cret that Trinidad and To­ba­go need ac­cess to gas and oil to help re­cov­er our econ­o­my,” Au­gus­tine said.

“Ear­li­er this year, when we heard it was off, I pub­licly spoke about how that would im­pact our econ­o­my. In fact, we were in the heart of the (elec­tion) cam­paign, and I ex­plained to To­bag­o­ni­ans how this would make things much more dif­fi­cult for us.”

He al­so crit­i­cised the in­flu­ence of pow­er­ful na­tions.

“How un­for­tu­nate it is that these larg­er coun­tries can just sit where they sit and de­ter­mine who we trade with, who we do busi­ness with,” he said.

Still, Au­gus­tine is pleased.

“It is good news that it is back on. I have al­ways felt that we were at a dis­ad­van­tage to the North. I have al­ways sup­port­ed it be­ing on, and I want to make that clear,” he said.