Miami, CMC- Trinidad and Tobago Minister of Energy and Energy Industries Stuart Young says the oil-rich twin island republic has been “experiencing the collateral damage of the geopolitics” due to the tense relationship between the United States and Venezuela.
In an address to the Energy International Summit of the Association of International Negotiators (AIEN), Young said that Venezuela, which is seven miles from Trinidad and Tobago, sits on the largest known oil reserves in the world.
“We have several cross-border fields with Venezuela, and across the border, there are significant proven gas fields in Venezuelan waters a matter of kilometers away from existing infrastructure in Trinidad and Tobago waters.”.
Young said the two countries, in 2017, negotiated a commercial term sheet with Venezuela to develop a significant gas field with three trillion cubic feet (tcf) of proven gas reserves, known as the Dragon gas field, and to bring the gas to Trinidad via 17 km of the pipeline, to one of the country’s offshore facilities.
Speaking on the theme “Pursuit of Energy Security and Sustainability – A Caribbean Perspective,” Young said Trinidad and Tobago had intended to use this gas in its liquefied natural gas (LNG) and petrochemical plants.
“We had planned to start with 350 mmscf a day, and this would have flowed from 2020 save for the sanctions we subsequently imposed. We became the victims of the geopolitics surrounding our nearest neighbor. Unfortunately, we are experiencing the collateral damage of geopolitics,” Young told the international conference.
He said that there is a cross-border gas field that his country shares with Venezuela, called Loran/ Manatee, and that it has approximately ten tcf of gas, with 2.7 tcf in Manatee, which is on Trinidad’s side and the remaining 7.3 tcf in Loran, which is on Venezuela’s side of the border.
“This field had been the subject of a unitization development agreement. In 2019, we successfully negotiated with the Venezuelan government to permit us to develop and produce the Manatee resources, giving us access to the 2.7 tcf of gas. We subsequently negotiated with Shell for Shell to produce Manatee, an investment that is expected to be in the order of one billion US dollars”.
Young said concerning Trinidad and Tobago’s access to the Dragon gas field, both Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley and himself spent significant time and energy in the United States last year meeting with the decision-makers in Washington, including President Joe Biden at the Summit of the Americas as well as Vice President Kamala Harris and lawmakers from both the Democratic and Republican parties negotiating and advocating for the grant of a waiver from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for Trinidad and Tobago to produce the Dragon gas field with Shell as our partner.
“I made over six trips to Washington DC in 2022 and worked with our lawyers to pursue the application to OFAC. With the support of other leaders of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), we followed the ability to access this gas field as there is immediate excess capacity in Trinidad for us to produce additional LNG, Ammonia, fertilizer products, and Methanol once we can make the gas field, thereby contributing to energy security in the CARICOM and broader region.
“ We would be able to provide additional LNG supplies to CARICOM countries and even Europe as it looks for alternatives to Russian gas,” he told the conference.
Young said that OFAC granted a waiver on January 24, and Trinidad and Tobago has been pursuing negotiations with the Venezuelan government to obtain a license to produce the Dragon gas field.
“This project is caught in the world of geopolitics and requires the most delicate of negotiations, including, but not limited to, further and ongoing negotiations with the United States and Venezuela. I look forward to us being able to bring this project to fruition,” Young said.
In his lengthy presentation to the conference, Young said the deep water province in Trinidad and Tobago is the next frontier for gas exploration and production.
“Our shallow waters have been exploited for decades and are in decline. We have been in active negotiations with Woodside on fiscal and commercial terms to commence the production of a deep water block where hydrocarbon resources have been found.
“This project called Calypso holds the medium-term future of Trinidad and Tobago’s gas production. We have had to be innovative and think outside the box as we negotiate. Again, the benefit of relationships and mutual respect have assisted in growing Woodside’s interest in pursuing this resource.”
Young said Port of Spain is in ongoing discussions in pursuance of this development, and these discussions have positively impacted Woodside’s allocation of internal resources to the project.
He said the Trinidad and Tobago government has been negotiating with bp and Shell as a joint consortium on other deepwater blocks, and he was looking forward to the conclusion of those negotiations in the coming weeks.
“Like every responsible hydrocarbon country, we have been taking decisions concerning reducing greenhouse gas emissions and pursuing new energy projects,” Young said, noting that Trinidad and Tobago recently turned to sod for the commencement of the construction of a solar project that will produce 112.2 MW of power which is 10 percent of the country’s power needs.
“This project is a joint one with bp and Shell, who have shown continued commitment to Trinidad and Tobago. We intend to pursue more solar projects to reduce our emissions and permit us to use the gas saved to generate revenue for Trinidad and Tobago.
“We are also exploring the use of wind turbines for power generation. These renewables projects would also feed into the recently Cabinet-approved construction of our first green hydrogen project, which will be done under the direction of the Ministry of Energy.”
Young said that Trinidad and Tobago is also actively looking at Carbon Capture Sequestration and Utilization to do its part in carbon reduction. Still, if done correctly and in a public-private partnership (PPP) with petrochemical stakeholders, it could allow them to blue their products, thereby keeping them competitive in the changing energy landscape.
Young said that Trinidad and Tobago while focusing on evolving and protecting its gas sector, is also ensuring that it pursues the energy transition and has the components of new energy in its mix.
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