ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada, CMC – The Grenadian government is proposing that a tri-lateral joint commission be established with Venezuela and St Vincent and the Grenadines to guide the process for demarcating maritime boundaries.
“Grenada has also started an initiative to delimit the maritime boundaries with Venezuela and with St Vincent and the Grenadines. We completed the process, you know, with Trinidad and Tobago back in 2012. We have never been clear on what the boundary is between Grenada and Venezuela, and what the boundary is between St Vincent and Grenada,” said Nazim Burke, chairman of Grenada’s oil and gas Technical Working Group (TWG).
Burke, a former finance minister, providing an update on the TWG activities during a town hall meeting here, said that Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell has already submitted the tri-lateral proposal to the leaders of the two other countries.
“What has happened is that our prime minister has put forward a proposal to the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the Prime Minister of St Vincent for the establishment of a trilateral commission, a joint trilateral commission that will be composed of ten people,” he said.
“In essence, there will be three people from each of the three countries and a chairman from another country that will guide this process and work towards the completion of the boundaries between our three countries,” he said, adding that leasing property, whether on land or sea, would require the owner to know the boundary.
“It is a crucial step as well because you cannot go about leasing out land to people without knowing where your boundary is, you cannot go about leasing out maritime space to people without knowing where your boundaries are,” he said.
Burke told the town hall meeting that during the past six months, the TWG members have been holding discussions with relevant stakeholders, including Trinidad and Tobago and other companies, which have conducted research and possess spatial vector data about Grenada’s oil and gas.
In September, Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago agreed to extend their existing cooperation in the energy sector and announced plans to sign a date use agreement.
A joint statement issued following talks in Port of Spain between Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell and Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar, noted that the two countries “are desirous of continuing cooperation in the energy sector”.
The statement noted that in 2012, the two countries executed a framework agreement concerning energy sector cooperation for 10 years, starting on September 3 of that year, “ with automatic renewal pursuant to Article 10 of the Agreement and therefore is still in force.”
The statement said that, as a result, Trinidad and Tobago “will seek approval and communicate” with Grenada and the members of the Steering Committee for Trinidad and Tobago in the next three weeks to activate discussions on the matter.
The statement said that Port of Spain will collaborate with a TWG to assist in developing a regulatory framework for the petroleum sector in Grenada and provide technical personnel to review the study and work being done by the consultants.
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