Sobers tight-lipped on Venezuela energy push

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers is keep­ing silent on a high-stakes diplo­mat­ic ini­tia­tive an­nounced by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar last month, rais­ing fresh ques­tions about the sta­tus of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s push to se­cure its share of cross-bor­der en­er­gy re­sources from neigh­bour­ing Venezuela.

Near­ly a month af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­clared that a diplo­mat­ic del­e­ga­tion would be dis­patched to Cara­cas to en­sure the coun­try ob­tains its “just share” of oil and gas re­serves, there has been no of­fi­cial up­date on whether that mis­sion has ma­te­ri­alised.

The Prime Min­is­ter had in­di­cat­ed the move was part of a broad­er ef­fort to re­vive stalled en­er­gy projects in­volv­ing shared re­sources be­tween the two coun­tries, an is­sue of grow­ing na­tion­al im­por­tance giv­en Trinidad and To­ba­go’s de­pen­dence on the en­er­gy sec­tor.

Re­cent re­peat­ed at­tempts to ob­tain clar­i­ty from Sobers have proven fu­tile. Calls and mes­sages seek­ing com­ment on the time­line, com­po­si­tion or ob­jec­tives of the pro­posed del­e­ga­tion have gone unan­swered.

The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter has al­so re­mained tight-lipped, of­fer­ing no fur­ther de­tails since the ini­tial an­nounce­ment.

Just weeks af­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go sig­nalled its in­tent to re-en­gage Venezuela, the coun­try’s act­ing pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez, has been ac­tive­ly court­ing oth­er Caribbean na­tions.

In late April, Ro­dríguez trav­elled to Bar­ba­dos, where she held talks with Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley, ex­tend­ing an in­vi­ta­tion for Bar­ba­dos to in­vest di­rect­ly in Venezuela’s oil and gas sec­tor.

Dur­ing those dis­cus­sions, both sides ex­plored en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion, with Venezuela propos­ing joint ef­forts to boost hy­dro­car­bon pro­duc­tion.

Ro­dríguez un­der­scored the po­ten­tial for such part­ner­ships to strength­en re­gion­al en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly for Caribbean states fac­ing sup­ply chal­lenges.

Her vis­it to Bar­ba­dos, fol­low­ing an ear­li­er stop in Grena­da, sig­nals a broad­er Venezue­lan push to deep­en ties with­in Cari­com, even as its re­la­tion­ship with Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains del­i­cate.

En­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Venezuela has long been viewed as mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial, par­tic­u­lar­ly in un­lock­ing cross-bor­der gas fields. 

How­ev­er, geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions and strained rhetoric have com­pli­cat­ed that path­way.

Weigh­ing in on the is­sue yes­ter­day, for­mer For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne crit­i­cised the Prime Min­is­ter’s ap­proach, sug­gest­ing the ini­tia­tive may be stalled be­fore it even be­gins.

“The chal­lenge is that Prime Min­is­ter is fac­ing a host of prob­lems of her own cre­ation,” Dr Browne said.

He ar­gued that Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­mains per­sona non gra­ta in Venezuela fol­low­ing what he de­scribed as an un­nec­es­sary es­ca­la­tion of hos­tile rhetoric be­tween the two coun­tries.

“In the nor­mal course of diplo­ma­cy, a mis­sion to Venezuela such as the one grand­ly an­nounced by the Prime Min­is­ter would be con­tin­gent up­on our re­ceipt of a let­ter of in­vi­ta­tion from the Gov­ern­ment of Venezuela,” Browne added.

“Let’s see if such cor­re­spon­dence is re­ceived, be­cause un­til then the Prime Min­is­ter’s an­nounce­ments will be mere­ly wish­ful think­ing and her usu­al emp­ty brava­do.”