RYAN BA­CHOO

Lead Ed­i­tor–News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@guardian.co.tt

For­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young says the Gov­ern­ment’s rhetoric to­wards Venezuela in re­cent months will in­flu­ence ne­go­ti­a­tions for the Drag­on gas deal.

Young’s com­ment came a day af­ter it was an­nounced that Unit­ed States Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio sup­port­ed the ap­proval of the rel­e­vant Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC) li­cences to be­gin dis­cus­sions on de­vel­op­ing cross-bor­der hy­dro­car­bons. Ru­bio’s de­ci­sion came af­ter a meet­ing with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in Wash­ing­ton, DC.

At an Op­po­si­tion press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day in Port-of-Spain, the for­mer prime min­is­ter said Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ear­li­er state­ment at the swear­ing-in of her Cab­i­net that the Drag­on gas deal was “dead” may come back to haunt her.

Young said, “They have a long road ahead of them, and a road where they say, on this oc­ca­sion, it is three hands that have to clap, not two. It is the same Del­cy, Del­cy, Del­cy that every week we went to Par­lia­ment, I had to be hear­ing from them as they hurled abuse at us on our side about our in­ter­ac­tions with the Vice Pres­i­dent of Venezuela and the Min­is­ter of En­er­gy.”

He added, “So, to lis­ten to the cheer­ing and the pom-pom be­hav­iour of some, when we know the re­al­i­ty of what we face is why we’ve come here to­day to cau­tion, but al­so the irony of and the glee of Dragón be­ing there.”

Young cau­tioned that the Gov­ern­ment must en­gage di­rect­ly with the Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties and not re­ly on third par­ties.

“They have not ob­tained an OFAC li­cence be­cause it is not the Sec­re­tary of State or the State De­part­ment that is­sues that. That comes from the De­part­ment of Trea­sury and a par­tic­u­lar of­fice. Of course, Sec­re­tary Ru­bio will have a huge say, if not the say, as to the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s po­si­tion. (But) un­til that is in hand, they don’t even have a start­ing point with Venezuela.

“I sus­pect I know what they’re count­ing on—the re­la­tion­ship with the en­er­gy com­pa­nies—but ul­ti­mate­ly, the en­er­gy com­pa­nies will not de­ter­mine the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment’s pol­i­cy and what they do with their gas.”

Young chal­lenged both Per­sad-Bisses­sar and cur­rent En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal to show the na­tion the OFAC li­cence they claim to have. “It is lit­er­al­ly a li­cence that you re­ceive with the terms and con­di­tions that set out the pa­ra­me­ters up­on which you can ne­go­ti­ate. That is the start­ing doc­u­ment to then go and have a con­ver­sa­tion with those who own the gas,” Young added.

Mean­while, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les con­demned the Gov­ern­ment for its re­cent tense di­a­logue with Venezuela.

“I think what for me is amaz­ing is the fact that this Gov­ern­ment is say­ing they have such ex­cel­lent re­la­tion­ships with Venezuela. I mean, it’s to­tal­ly con­trary to every­thing that has gone on over the last cou­ple of months. But what it re­al­ly tells us is the sig­nif­i­cance of diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions, the sig­nif­i­cance of sov­er­eign­ty, and the sig­nif­i­cance of the re­gion be­ing a zone of peace. And that’s why we have to be so very, very care­ful about what you say. Be­cause here it is that you are now tak­ing a 360-de­gree (180-de­gree) turn and you’re now say­ing—the same Venezuela that you’ve said all sorts of things about—and that is the iden­ti­cal coun­try you are go­ing to now to deal with.”

In April, Young an­nounced that T&T’s US-is­sued li­cences, which al­lowed for the ex­ploita­tion of gas fields in Venezue­lan wa­ters, had been re­voked.

T&T was first grant­ed an OFAC li­cence on Oc­to­ber 31, 2023, paving the way for po­ten­tial gas ex­trac­tion from the Drag­on field in Venezue­lan wa­ters. A sec­ond li­cence fol­lowed on May 31, 2024, for the Cocuina-Man­akin field.