Caption: Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio

By Alicia Chamely

THE People’s National Movement (PNM) government actively sought to explore and exploit the 4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves located in the Dragon Gas field, which neighbours the T&T Manakin-Cocuina gas field that straddles both nations maritime borders.

In order to do so they needed to obtain an Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) license, to work within the sanctions placed on Venezuela by the US government.

The US Treasury Department issued T&T an OFAC license in October 2023.

Stipulations of the OFAC license included not being able to pay Venezuela in any sort of currency and payments must be “in kind.”

This was rejected by the Venezuelan government and forced T&T to go back to the US to negotiate the terms of the OFAC license, which was amended allowing for payment in currency.

By September 2023, an agreement was reached between T&T and Venezuela for the exploration and exploitation of the Dragon Gas field, with the goal of constructing a pipeline from the Dragon Gas field to existing National Gas Company (NGC) and Shell Hibiscus platform infrastructure in T&T waters.

In December 2023, Venezuela’s oil ministry granted Shell and NGC a 30-year production-sharing contract for Dragon.

In April 2024, the US government, under the Donald Trump administration, revoked T&T’s OFAC license.

Upon her election on April 28, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar declared the Dragon Gas deal dead, saying her government would focus on expanding T&T’s energy sector business with Grenada, Guyana and Suriname.

On Wednesday, October 1, 2025, Persad-Bissessar met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington DC. Rubio’s office would later put out a release stating the US was committed to granting T&T an OFAC license to restart the Dragon Gas Deal.

On Wednesday October 9, 2025, the Treasury Department officially issued a renewed OFAC license to T&T to begin negotiations with Venezuela.