Venezuela-T&T energy talks remain ‘complex’, experts warn

Raphael John-Lall

For­mer head of the In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), Dr An­tho­ny Gon­za­les, says Venezuela’s act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez should be free to dress as she choos­es, while urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to “tone down” its crit­i­cism of Cara­cas amid on­go­ing diplo­mat­ic and en­er­gy ne­go­ti­a­tions.

“You can­not tell Venezuela’s act­ing Pres­i­dent what to wear. She can wear what she wants. I don’t see the fuss,” he told Guardian Me­dia in a tele­phone in­ter­view.

How­ev­er, Gon­za­les cau­tioned that Trinidad and To­ba­go must pri­ori­tise con­clud­ing en­er­gy ne­go­ti­a­tions with Venezuela, not­ing what he de­scribed as a con­cern­ing lack of pub­lic ac­knowl­edge­ment from Venezue­lan lead­er­ship to­ward the T&T Gov­ern­ment.

“There seems to be some­thing hap­pen­ing. The Venezue­lans are not push­ing be­cause of the ten­sions in the past. I think that T&T’s Gov­ern­ment must tone down its crit­i­cism of Venezuela,” he said.

“T&T’s lead­er­ship thought that the US Gov­ern­ment would change the en­tire Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment and it did not hap­pen. The Amer­i­cans don’t want Iraq-type chaos in the re­gion.”

He ex­pressed con­fi­dence that de­spite diplo­mat­ic ten­sions, com­mer­cial en­er­gy arrange­ments in­volv­ing multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies would still pro­ceed.

“The pri­vate sec­tor and multi­na­tion­als will even­tu­al­ly bring the gas here,” Gon­za­les said.

“T&T’s Gov­ern­ment should just sit qui­et­ly and deal with all sides.”

His com­ments come as For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers said Trinidad and To­ba­go is fo­cused on ad­vanc­ing diplo­mat­ic and en­er­gy ne­go­ti­a­tions with Venezuela, rather than com­men­tary on the at­tire or jew­ellery worn by Ro­dríguez.

Sobers made the re­marks dur­ing last week’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing, amid con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing a brooch worn by Ro­dríguez de­pict­ing a map of Venezuela that in­cludes Guyana’s Es­se­qui­bo re­gion.

Last month, Guyana Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali wrote to Cari­com chair­man Ter­rance Drew ob­ject­ing to the use of the brooch dur­ing of­fi­cial re­gion­al en­gage­ments.

Mean­while, Venezue­lan en­er­gy an­a­lyst Dr Ein­stein Mil­lán Ar­cia, a for­mer ad­vis­er to PDVSA, said prospects for fi­nal­is­ing new en­er­gy agree­ments re­main “com­plex,” de­spite on­go­ing diplo­mat­ic en­gage­ment.

He pre­vi­ous­ly served as ad­vis­er to the late Venezue­lan Oil Min­is­ter and PDVSA pres­i­dent Nel­son Martínez.

In ear­ly April, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced plans for a diplo­mat­ic del­e­ga­tion to trav­el to Cara­cas to ad­vance talks on stalled en­er­gy projects, in­clud­ing the Drag­on gas ini­tia­tive and the Lo­ran-Man­a­tee field, as part of ef­forts to se­cure T&T’s “just share” of cross-bor­der re­sources.

Mil­lán Ar­cia said po­lit­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions must be set aside if com­mer­cial progress is to be achieved.

“The diplo­mat­ic del­e­ga­tion to Cara­cas has one mis­sion: to se­cure op­er­a­tions across cross-bor­der oil and gas as­sets where Venezuela has the largest share, and with­out which de­vel­op­ment ef­forts on the T&T side will be­come un­eco­nom­ic,” he said.

He said diplo­mat­ic con­straints, in­clud­ing Venezuela’s des­ig­na­tion of cer­tain of­fi­cials as per­sona non gra­ta, con­tin­ue to com­pli­cate en­gage­ment.

“These com­plex­i­ties are ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue be­yond the ap­par­ent word­ing. In sum­ma­ry, Del­cy Ro­dríguez is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue is­su­ing strong warn­ings through diplo­mat­ic chan­nels, while still shap­ing the space for both busi­ness and po­lit­i­cal en­gage­ment,” he said.