TRINIDAD-Trinidad PM says meeting with US Secretary of State was “excellent”

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC—Prime Minister Stuart Young said Thursday he held “successful” discussions with the United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, on Wednesday and that he remains confident that Trinidad and Tobago’s oil agreements with Venezuela to develop the energy sector will not be significantly affected.

Young, speaking at the end of the weekly Cabinet meeting, told reporters that during his meeting with Rubio in Jamaica, Port of Spain had been able to advocate what is best for the country and the wider Caribbean Community (CARICOM) after Washington had earlier announced a new directive that eliminates oil and gas licenses for foreign companies in Venezuela.

“I took the opportunity to start by emphasizing that Trinidad and Tobago is an ally of the United States and the importance of the relationship between Trinidad and Tobago and the United States,” Young told reporters. We are also making it clear that Trinidad and Tobago is seven miles off the coast of Venezuela.

“We are the closest Caribbean island to the South American continent, and that is the role we play in that relationship between Venezuela, the United States, Europe, etc. It was recognized that Trinidad and Tobago is a leader in CARICOM,” Young told reporters.

Trinidad and Tobago has been planning to request an extension from Washington for a license granted to Shell and the National Gas Company (NGC) to develop the Dragon gas project in Venezuela.

The license, issued in early 2023, allows the companies to plan the project. The project aims to supply gas to Trinidad by 2027. The Dragon Field is located in Venezuelan waters near the maritime border with Trinidad.

In 2023, the US amended the license to permit payments to Venezuela and its state company, PDVSA, in hard currency or kind, extending its expiration to October 2025. Shell and NGC require an extension to begin production following their final investment decision (FID), which is expected this year.

Following the talks between Young and Rubio, US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said the American official had thanked Prime Minister Young for “Trinidad and Tobago’s cooperation to promote energy security, deepen our security partnership, and enhance coordination on the deportation of illegal aliens.”

Young said that during the meeting, “there was mutual respect and an understanding of both countries’ positions on specific policy matters.

“It gave me…the opportunity firsthand to discuss the matters in energy with the Secretary of State. They had as one of the items as did we, the need to discuss energy security, not only for us here domestically, but throughout the region, and as I emphasized, we also do supply LNG (liquified natural gas) products to Chile in South America, …and in the past to the eastern seaboard of the United States”.

Young said he then took the discussion to the “Dragon gas deal, to our relationship with Venezuela and emphasized the importance of it, not only to Trinidad and Tobago, but I was able to set out how it will also affect the rest of the CARICOM region because of the critical role we play in supporting some of our CARICOM brother and sister nations throughout the region.

“That was accepted,” Young said, adding, “Yesterday was a good day for Trinidad and Tobago.

As a result, he was able to get into some level of “granular detail and discuss with the Secretary of State, who is one of the prominent people who is going to be charged with determining the policy to deal with Venezuela, and particular energy going forward, exactly how this transaction is structured, the work we have already done with Shell to make it a reality, and the effects that I will have, in particular on the rest of the region.

“I was happy in that conversation. Secretary of State Rubio indicated he was pleased with the information because he was getting it firsthand. He understood and said that US foreign policy is not meant to affect or harm Trinidad and Tobago, particularly what we do for energy security”.

Young said that there was a recognition that “Trinidad and Tobago’s role in energy security is not limited to our domestic situation.”

Young also discussed ongoing exploration work in the gas and energy section, “his team understood that because these are the conversations I have been having with the decision-makers in Washington for the past few years.”

The specific amended Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) license issued to Trinidad and Tobago on October 17, 2023, is valid until October 31, 2025. Trinidad and Tobago also secured a 30-year exploration and production license from the government of Venezuela for the Dragon gas field on December 21, 2023.

Young, the Energy and Energy Industries Minister, told reporters that the Dragon field project is “continuing…we haven’t slowed down.

“Understand, please, as our largest trading ally, the effects that can have if it doesn’t happen. Sec. retary of State Rubio is very clear that he appreciated the opportunity to hear from us…and the effects it would have, and he kept emphasizing that we are not going to harm Trinidad and Tobago.”

He told reporters that discussing whether or not the OFAC license would be extended would be speculative, adding, “What I can tell you is that you could recall a few weeks ago that the Chevron license was not continued …

“What has happened since then with that license…Chevron was then granted a further extension. Things are fluid,” he added.

Young said Trinidad and Tobago is making sure that “all of the eggs in the gas sector are not …in the Dragon basket” and welcomed BP Trinidad and Tobago’s (bpTT) announcement on Thursday regarding the Ginger gas development and exploration success at its Frangipani well.

The company said that taking FID on Ginger and discovering gas at Frangipani are BP’s latest demonstrations of upstream activity this year, aligning with its strategy to grow its oil and gas business.

THE Ginger gas development off the southeast coast of Trinidad, which is expected to produce an average of 62,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, has officially been green-lit by bpTT. It said this project is one of its ten major projects slated to start in the next two years and that the first gas for the Ginger project is anticipated in 2027.

“I am very proud to announce these two milestones. With Frangipani, our objective was to prove that our continued progress in exploration and appraisal activity could unlock new fields and investment opportunities for the region. And the sanction of Ginger represents our commitment to continuing the development of resources in our existing acreage and producing the gas that Trinidad and Tobago – and the world – needs,” said bpTT president David Campbell .”

Ginger is located approximately 50 miles off Trinidad’s southeast coast in depths of less than 300 feet. Drilling on the first well began in January and is expected to resume in Q4. Frangipani is located east of the existing Mahogany field, approximately 50 miles off the southeast coast.

Young also told reporters that the government has been “very engaged” in making Calypso, a deep-water project, a reality.

“The government completed the negotiations on the fiscal terms some time ago, and it was up to BP and Woodside to figure out how they would be executing the project. We continue to be engaged with them, and I am told in the new few weeks, we should be able to come back to the population…and make announcements as to what’s going on there”.