THE highly anticipated Dragon Gas deal between Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela is taking longer than anticipated.
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley in expressing disappointment in the rate of the negotiations, also said that it did not mean that the deal was off.
The problem did not lie with Trinidad and Tobago but with the US and the Venezuelans he said during an interview on TV6’s Morning Edition with host Marlan Hopkinson on Thursday.
Dr Rowley said, “The Venezuelans have not accepted the terms laid down by the Americans. That is the long and short of it. We fought very hard to get the Americans to give us a carve-out which is to allow us to treat with PDVSA (Venezuela’s state-owned oil company) without breaking the sanctions.
“We eventually won that battle but they put a condition on it which the Venezuelans as of now have not accepted, we’re still talking on both sides. We’re still negotiating.”
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One of the conditions of the special licence to acquire the gas was that Venezuelan was to receive no cash payments.
The prime minister said, “It’s a disappointment for us here in T&T that it is taking so long or that the decisions that are being made for other people’s interests are being so detrimental to our interests.”
Dr Rowley said government will continue to stay the diplomatic course and will continue to advocate for T&T.
Regarding the sanctions he said, “We’ve got an escape from the sanctions but it carried something with it. We are still connected to the sanctions by a condition so we are working on that condition to see if we can come to a place which the Venezuelans can accept, which the Americans can accept and when that day would have come we would be in a much better place.”
In January, this year, Dr Rowley announced that Government has received a license to resume the development of the Dragon Gas Field in Venezuela, a development that was welcomed by The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited (NGC) and the Energy Chamber.
Since then, Energy Minister Stuart Young has been in discussions with Venezuelan authorities on the furtherance of the matter.
Located in Venezuelan territorial waters, the field is estimated to hold up to 4.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
