PM: Diplomatic mission to Venezuela to protect energy interests

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

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Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has an­nounced that a diplo­mat­ic del­e­ga­tion will soon trav­el to Venezuela to en­sure Trinidad and To­ba­go se­cures its “just share” of cross bor­der oil and gas re­sources, sig­nalling a re­newed push to ad­vance stalled en­er­gy projects.

Speak­ing at a fire ten­der han­dover cer­e­mo­ny in Pe­nal on Wednes­day, PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the move forms part of broad­er ef­forts to strength­en the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic se­cu­ri­ty along­side im­prove­ments in na­tion­al safe­ty in­fra­struc­ture.

“Short­ly, a diplo­mat­ic del­e­ga­tion will de­part Trinidad and To­ba­go to go to Venezuela to en­sure we get our just share of the oil and gas,” she said, not­ing that en­er­gy de­vel­op­ment re­mains crit­i­cal to the coun­try’s fu­ture.

Her com­ments come against the back­drop of long­stand­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Venezuela over joint en­er­gy fields, in­clud­ing the Drag­on gas field and the Lo­ran Man­a­tee field.

The Drag­on gas field—lo­cat­ed in Venezue­lan wa­ters but close to Trinidad’s en­er­gy in­fra­struc­ture—has been viewed as a key sup­ply source for the coun­try’s liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas LNG in­dus­try. Progress has been com­pli­cat­ed by geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions and sanc­tions im­posed on Venezuela.

Sim­i­lar­ly, the Lo­ran Man­a­tee field which strad­dles mar­itime bound­aries has long been the sub­ject of bi­lat­er­al dis­cus­sions, with Trinidad and To­ba­go mov­ing ahead with de­vel­op­ment on its side while ne­go­ti­a­tions con­tin­ue re­gard­ing the Venezue­lan por­tion.

Re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries have his­tor­i­cal­ly fluc­tu­at­ed, with dis­putes over ac­cess, rev­enue shar­ing and op­er­a­tional con­trol. These ten­sions in­ten­si­fied in re­cent years amid in­ter­na­tion­al sanc­tions and diplo­mat­ic pres­sure on Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro, in­clud­ing ac­tions led by the Unit­ed States tar­get­ing his ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Against this back­drop, PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar said her gov­ern­ment re­mains com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go ben­e­fits fair­ly from shared re­sources.

“We are look­ing not on­ly at safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty in the phys­i­cal sense, but al­so eco­nom­ic se­cu­ri­ty for our peo­ple,” she said.

The Prime Min­is­ter made the an­nounce­ment dur­ing the of­fi­cial com­mis­sion­ing of a $69 mil­lion fleet of fire ten­ders for the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice (TTFS), us­ing the oc­ca­sion to con­nect na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment with per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ence.