Dragon gas deal with Venezuela

[The_Honourable]

Venezuela & Trinidad fail to come to agreement on gas supply

Ministers of Venezuela and Trinidad & Tobago met in Caracas this week in an effort to hammer out a contract to send gas from Venezuela’s Dragon Field to Trinidad for conversion into LNG so that it can be shipped worldwide.

According to a report in the Latin American Herald Tribune, Venezuela’s Oil Minister and head of the state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, SA (PDVSA), Manuel Quevedo, hosted Trinidad Minister Stuart Young from the Ministry of the Legal Affairs and Prime Minister’s Office. They met for hours on Tuesday to hash out the agreements on gas signed between both countries.

The Agreement contemplates the supply of natural gas from Venezuela’s developing offshore natural gas field to Trinidad.

That routing would entail Venezuela connecting into Shell’s platform and Trinidad’s network in Trinidad’s neighboring Hibiscus gas field.

Mark Loquan, president of the National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited (NGC), Verlier Quan Vie, vice president of the Compañía Nacional de Gas; Paul Byam, Ambassador of Trinidad and Tobago to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela; Selwyn Lashley, strategic advisor to the Minister of Energy and Energy Industries; Dereck Hudson, president of Shell Trinidad and Tobago; and Luis Prado, president of Shell Venezuela were all part of the discussions.

In addition to Quevedo, Douglas Sosa, vice minister of gas; Nemrod Contreras, Vice President of Gas; and Marcos Rojas, Vice President of International Affairs of PDVSA also participated for the Venezuelan side.

“The parties spent hours negotiating today in Caracas bringing the possibility of the across border gas deal closer,” Trinidad’s Prime Minister’s office reported. “There remain a number of areas where further work is required and Minister Young agreed to return to Caracas, Venezuela in two weeks for the two Ministers to attempt to settle the terms of the agreement.”

Insiders tell the Latin American Herald Tribune (LAHT) that the two sides were unable to finalize the agreement over a dispute about price.

“The problem for Venezuela is that they essentially have nowhere to go with their gas, having failed to follow through on a Memorandum of Understanding with Shell to develop the Mariscal Sucre gas project signed almost 2 decades ago, which even included plans for a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant in Venezuela,” said Russ Dallen, head of investment bank Caracas Capital. “Trinidad literally has Venezuela over a barrel.”

“Minister Young extended an invitation for Minister Quevedo to come to Trinidad to visit the LNG plant and other downstream petrochemical operations,” reports Trinidad’s Prime Ministerial office. “All parties involved remain committed to the Dragon Gas Project becoming a reality.”

Source: http://oilnow.gy/news/venezuela-trinida ... as-supply/

[RBphoto]

Can we cut the gas subsidy now?

[ProtonPowder]

Can we cut the gas subsidy now?

On the one hand, T&tec rates will go up.
On the other hand, that will eventually make people put solar panels on the roof for hot water, making us a greener economy and provide more skilled jobs.

I ready

[airuma]

How come the minister of energy (quite a misnomer when you consider the physical health of the individual) was not present at the meeting? Stuart Young starting to look like the minister of everything!

[ProtonPowder]

He basically is, that's exactly what his daddy plant him there to be

[stikid09]

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley leaves the Miraflores Palace in Caracas yesterday before returning to Trinidad.

Photo: ISHMAEL SALANDY

PRIME Minister Dr Keith Rowley and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro yesterday signed an agreement for Trinidad and Tobago to purchase natural gas from Venezuela’s Dragon Field.

But while Royal Dutch Shell, the National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago (NGC) and Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) yesterday agreed upon certain terms, they did not disclose the price at which T&T will buy the gas.

In separate statements yesterday at the Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas, Rowley and Maduro described the terms of agreement (TOA) signing as “historic” with the promise to benefit both economies.

However, no copy of the TOA was shared with journalists.

[hydroep]

Talk about building one's house upon the sand...

Warning over Dragon Gas Deal
Anna Lisa Paul

Op­po­si­tion law­mak­er, a mem­ber of the Venezue­lan As­sem­bly, Car­los Valero is warn­ing Gov­ern­ment that any treaties or con­tracts signed be­tween the two coun­tries and which have not been passed by the Na­tion­al As­sem­bly in Venezuela might not be ho­n­oured in the fu­ture.

In an in­ter­view with CNC 3 yes­ter­day be­fore head­ing back to Venezuela, Valero claimed the Na­tion­al As­sem­bly was the on­ly le­git­i­mate body in Venezuela with the au­thor­i­ty to en­sure that agree­ments were le­gal and would be ho­noured mov­ing for­ward.

Valero urged lo­cal law-mak­ers not to be swayed or ma­nip­u­lat­ed by the promis­es of the cur­rent Venezue­lan ad­min­is­tra­tion.

The Op­po­si­tion UNC had raised queries about the le­git­i­ma­cy of the deal in Par­lia­ment when Pointe-a-Pierre MP David Lee asked if it was ap­proved by the Venezue­lan Na­tion­al As­sem­bly.

In re­sponse, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said: “I am Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go and I could on­ly speak to and for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s in­volve­ment in this mat­ter. What goes on in Venezuela is a mat­ter for the Venezue­lans, and I can­not speak to what the as­sem­bly is re­quired to do.”

On Au­gust 27, the Prime Min­is­ter and Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro signed an agree­ment in Cara­cas that will al­low the is­land to ac­cess gas from the off­shore Drag­on field.

Row­ley had told the me­dia then, “We may have been able to save our in­dus­try by get­ting a se­cure source of gas for the down­stream sec­tor. It may over time al­so al­low us to look at the ex­pan­sion of the down­stream sec­tor and in­vest­ments there, as long as we can show in­vestors we have a se­cured stream of gas.”

The Prime Min­is­ter was not will­ing to dis­close the price of the gas, point­ing to com­mer­cial con­fi­den­tial­i­ty, but he re­vealed it will be 150 mil­li­on stan­dard cu­bic feet per day (mm­scf/d), with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of it in­creas­ing to 300 mm­scf/d.

The pipeline car­ry­ing the gas from Venezuela’s Drag­on Gas field in East­ern Venezuela to Shell’s Hi­bis­cus plat­form off the North Coast will be built and owned in a joint ven­ture be­tween the NGC and Shell Trinidad. The es­ti­mat­ed cost of the con­struc­tion of the pipeline is close to TT $1 bil­li­on.

T&T has been suf­fer­ing from gas cur­tail­ment for the last six years and it has led to a short­fall in the pro­duc­tion of all the com­mo­di­ties in­clud­ing LNG and Petro­chem­i­cals and as a con­se­quence sig­nif­i­cant loss of rev­enue to the trea­sure and for­eign ex­change. Trinidad and To­ba­go will re­ceive its first gas from Venezuela’s Drag­on Field in 2020, ac­cord­ing to Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic’s Min­is­ter of En­er­gy, Manuel Queve­do, last month.

Open home to Venezue­lan refugees—Valero

As­sess­ing the refugee sit­u­a­tion in Trinidad, Valero plead­ed with lo­cals open their hearts and homes to those flee­ing the eco­nom­ic cri­sis in Venezuela.

He said it was im­por­tant now to en­sure there was a co­or­di­nat­ed ap­proach to the hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis - both in T&T and Venezuela.

Valero said in 2018, in­fla­tion reached one mil­lion per cent in Venezuela.

And with the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF) pro­ject­ing it would reach 10 mil­lion per cent in 2019, he said this was why three mil­lion peo­ple had fled Venezuela.

He ad­mit­ted a large num­ber of these per­sons had come to T&T, but he claimed the is­sue was a “tem­po­ral” one and as such, he was im­plor­ing Trinida­di­ans to help as much as they could.

Valero called for Gov­ern­ment’s sup­port to ad­dress the is­sue on a mul­ti-lat­er­al lev­el us­ing re­sources from the US and EU.

He said Venezuela was de­ter­mined to get through this cri­sis but need­ed the help and sup­port of oth­er coun­tries in the mean­time.

Valero said he and his coun­try­men were em­bar­rassed by the cur­rent cri­sis which had re­sult­ed in hun­dreds of Venezue­lans il­le­gal­ly en­ter­ing T&T.

How­ev­er, he ap­pealed to the pub­lic to un­der­stand that the on­ly guilty sec­tor in this sit­u­a­tion was the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment as he prayed noth­ing like this ever hap­pened in T&T.

From dis­cus­sions with Venezue­lans liv­ing in T&T, Valero said many had re­port­ed go­ing to the Unit­ed Na­tions High Com­mis­sion­er for Refugees (UN­HCR) for help, but in the ab­sence of any leg­is­la­tion to reg­u­late their mi­gra­to­ry prob­lems - they felt they were not pro­tect­ed by the State.

As such, Valero re­newed a call for bind­ing le­gal agree­ments to ad­dress the cri­sis.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he in­vit­ed the Gov­ern­ment to make this prob­lem vis­i­ble and in­crease aware­ness of this prob­lem - as there were 10,000 Venezue­lans cur­rent­ly seek­ing asy­lum in T&T.

He claimed there were 60,000 Venezue­lans in T&T, but warned this could reach as much as 100,000 or even 200,000 as he said the sit­u­a­tion in Venezuela was not go­ing to im­prove any­time soon based on the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion.

Valero said Venezuela did not have any mal­ice or ill-will to­wards T&T and its’ peo­ple, but that his peo­ple need­ed the help of this coun­try to get through the cri­sis.

http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/warning-over-dragon-gas-deal-6.2.722552.6150df67d4

[The_Honourable]

Exclusive: Venezuela rejected BP bid to buy Total's stake in gas block - sources



CARACAS/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Venezuela’s oil ministry last month turned down a proposal by BP (BP.L) to buy Total’s (TOTF.PA) stake in a promising but inactive natural gas project along the maritime border with Trinidad and Tobago, five people briefed on the matter said.

BP owns the rights to the Trinidadian side of the gas play. It could have used the output from the neighboring area, the Deltana Platform’s fourth block off Venezuela’s eastern coast, to feed its growing operations on the island, said the people, who were not authorized to speak publicly.

The rejection highlights how Venezuela’s socialist government, often hostile to foreign companies, remains an obstacle to investment even as oil majors eye the OPEC nation’s barely tapped gas reserves to expand their liquefied natural gas (LNG) portfolios.

The ministry told the parties the area’s reserves needed to be re-estimated, an argument it has used to reject other deals.

Two of the people said the deal had been waiting for approval for two years. France’s Total said in a March filing that the sale of its 49 percent stake was “awaiting approval from the authorities.”

Norway’s Equinor (EQNR.OL) owns the other 51 percent. An Equinor spokesman said it finished exploration drilling 10 years ago, but declined to comment on Total’s plans.

Gas investment could help Venezuela, which has the world’s largest crude reserves, compensate for lack of capital for its oil industry, whose production continues plummeting amid a political and economic crisis. Venezuela’s mostly undeveloped gas reserves were 225 trillion cubic feet (TCF) at the end of 2017, compared with Trinidad’s 9.2 TCF, according to BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy.

BP and Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.AS) own stakes in all four of Trinidad’s LNG plants, known as trains. Shell, the world’s largest liquefied gas trader after buying BG Group for $52 billion, is pushing Venezuela to let it produce gas in the offshore Dragon field, close to its Hibiscus platform off Trinidad.

“There’s a real shortage of gas supply in the downstream industries in Trinidad,” said Tanvir Malik, a research analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Total’s attempt to sell comes as some Western oil firms seek to shrink their Venezuelan operations as reputational risk grows amid U.S. sanctions and corruption probes linked to government officials and state-run oil company PDVSA.

Shell requested approval this year to sell its only crude asset in Venezuela to French firm Maurel & Prom. Total recently downgraded its Venezuelan projects to the lowest investment category, implying it could continue looking for buyers, two company sources said.

BP declined to comment. Venezuela’s oil ministry and Total did not respond to requests for comment.

NOT ALONE

Venezuelan law requires PDVSA to take a majority stake in crude oil joint ventures, but is more flexible with gas, allowing foreign firms to individually operate projects through exploration and production licenses.

But ownership changes in gas projects are still subject to regulatory approval, and the government is required to provide an explanation for rejections, said Eugenio Hernández-Bretón, a partner at the Baker McKenzie law firm in Caracas.

Under late socialist President Hugo Chavez, PDVSA tried to take control of prominent gas projects, including the Deltana and Mariscal Sucre offshore plays, both close to Trinidad with total estimated reserves of about 22 TCF. Neither project has yet started commercial production due to long delays stemming from lack of funds and disputes over control between PDVSA and the private companies.

“It is really difficult for a foreign investor to feel comfortable with Venezuelan laws applied in practice,” Hernández-Bretón said.

“We don’t have the financial resources or technical expertise for developing natural gas projects, whereas Trinidad has the expertise and the backing of foreign investors.”

While once an afterthought to crude oil, Big Oil is focusing increasingly on natural gas as global demand for less carbon-intensive fuels rises and LNG facilitates international gas trading.

Both Shell and BP are ramping up gas operations in Trinidad, one of the world’s top 10 gas exporters. Efforts are under way to reverse the island’s 18 percent decline in gas output in the past decade.

A BP gas platform built by U.S. engineering firm McDermott International (MDR.N) in Mexico recently set sail to Trinidad, a McDermott executive told Reuters.

PDVSA and Trinidad’s state gas company signed an agreement in August to allow exports from Dragon into Trinidad, without specifying how to finance the construction of a $1 billion pipeline needed to transport the gas.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vene ... SKCN1NV2B9

[toyolink]

Doing business with and in Venezuela as it relates to gas and oil has historically been quite a risky thing.
Administrations are known to 'trash' agreements upon assumption of office and in many cases change terms rendering agreements impossible to sustain.

[The_Honourable]

Dragon gas deal in trouble... blames Kamla lol

Important points from the article The Dragon Deal revisited - Mariano Browne

"There are at 22 legal actions against Venezuela before international courts demanding compensation for expropriated assets. The most successful of these actions has been Conoco, which seized Venezuela/ PDVSA assets in Curacao and Aruba in May 2018. New loans to Venezuela have come from Russia and China predicated on the allocation of energy rights and payment in oil. As ever, the threat of US sanctions looms large.

Can T&T survive an investment stranded by US sanctions? Would Shell be prepared to jeopardise its international position for a mere 10 TCF of gas? The answer to both questions is a resounding no. Shell is interested in all of Venezuela’s gas not 10 TCF. The timing is not right, nor is the existing political situation improving.

The Prime Minister invested considerable time and political capital pursuing the Dragon initiative. It added lustre as a man of action, it sounded good, but it was hopeless gambit with little chance of success. Stationing two long-range Russian bombers in Venezuela and the announcement that Iranian warships would be sent to Venezuela raises the geopolitical stakes.

The Prime Minister must now find a scapegoat to blame for his failure and for the foreign policy mistakes and mispositioning at the OAS on Venezuela. This is a standard operating procedure and explains his claim that the opposition conspired with a member of the National Assembly, Carlos Valero, to sabotage his efforts whilst visiting T&T last month.

Mr Valero simply reiterated what several T&T Ambassadors to Venezuela have reported to wit; No deal between Venezuela and T&T is legally binding unless it is ratified by the National Assembly.

There was never a Dragon Deal; this never rose beyond an initiative and needed no sabotage to fail. Blaming the opposition fits the political narrative and sells well."

Full Article: Trinidad Guardian Digital: http://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/d ... c6394ac94b

[shake d livin wake d dead]

idk why shitkickers din jump out heself, blame Putin and question those bombers

[De Dragon]

idk why shitkickers din jump out heself, blame Putin and question those bombers

Was prolly too busy scarfing down taxpayer funded cocktails with the rest of the freeloading PNM leeches.

[timelapse]

idk why shitkickers din jump out heself, blame Putin and question those bombers

Was prolly too busy scarfing down taxpayer funded cocktails with the rest of the freeloading PNM leeches.

Leeches suck blood.
PNM suck leeches

[hydroep]

Is Trump fault....

Dragon on hold, Rowley blames US sanctions
Ryan Hamilton-Davis

The Dragon deal, considered a landmark cross-border agreement between TT and Venezuela, is currently on hold. The Prime Minister, speaking at the 2020 Energy Conference, said because of US economic sanctions against Venezuela, “it is regrettable that we cannot move ahead with the Dragon Project which is on hold, at this time.” He added, though, that “at a moment’s notice, we are ready to move ahead with the project on the lifting of such restrictions since virtually all the preparatory work has been done.”

The government will, however, move forward with Manatee, part of the Loran-Manatee across-border (shared field) with Venezuela. The field has just over 10 trillion cubic feet of gas estimated, with 75 per cent in Venezuela and 25 in TT borders. Rowley said Manatee was “the single most significant development in the energy sector in recent times.”

He also boasted of close to a billion dollars in profits from subsidiary companies of Petrotrin, Heritage Petroleum and Paria Fuel Trading Company on Monday at the opening of the TT Energy Conference 2020. He said for its first year Heritage made $884 million in profits after tax (unaudited statements) and Paria garnered $172 million for the same period.

https://newsday.co.tt/2020/02/03/dragon-on-hold-rowley-blames-us-sanctions/

[Dizzy28]

For once Kamla not to blame?? I am shocked!!

[The_Honourable]

Doh study growlers, Maduro putting PDVSA for sale (privatize) hence why the deal stop.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... c-freefall

[sMASH]

^^ oh sheit. even maduro blank growlers...

[hydroep]

Well yes. So before the dotish Mudda Count just admit he get blank he decide to blame (and risk alienating) the US?

[rebound]

Wow

[Snyper]

That deal is still going through to avoid sanctions. Shell is one of the players that is going to make the connection to the gas field.

[pugboy]

Rowlee ever admit anything ?
His modus operandi is blame

:shock:

Well yes. So before the dotish Mudda Count just admit he get blank he decide to blame (and risk alienating) the US?

[The_Honourable]

Only last April, Gerry Brooks the then chariman of the NGC was saying that US sanctions would not hamper the Dragon Gas Deal-NOW all of a sudden the T&T Government says Dragon is off due to US Sanctions.

Most Trinis remain unaware that the Dragon Gas deal had little to do with Trinidad. The deal was really an agreement between Russia and Venezuela

Maduro has been taking huge loans from Russia to buy weapons and judging by the size of him probably empanadas.

Maduro can't pay back these loans so instead, he has been giving away Venezuela's natural assets

Back in 2017, to help pay his debts Maduro gave Russia two large gas fields named: Patao and Mejillones.

Now, these fields are very lucrative, but they are only worth something if the gas in them can actually be extracted and brought to market. There is no infrastructure in Venezuela to do this and Russia can't exactly build a pipeline from Moscow to the Caribbean.

BUT WAIT-In a complete coincidence -Maduro also decided to strike a deal with T&T-where gas from a nearby field -called Dragon-can be piped into T&T.

All T&T had to do is put up the capital to build a pipeline to Shell's hibiscus platform.And of course defend the Maduro regime.

Oh, and by the way, that also means gas from Patao and Mejillones can be brought to market via Dragon and Atlantic LNG. And that's exactly what was discussed.

The dragon gas deal wasn't about T&T and Maduro. It's about T&T serving both Maduro and Putin.

Dr. Rowley claimed the Dragon gas deal was a" Game Changer"-the truth is the gas we would have gotten from Dragon would have been just enough to run one methanol plant. (4% of local production)

This is what Dr. Rowley felt was worth defending in the worst regime in the region.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/darryn.boodan/ ... 2230175023

[sMASH]

just to make sure im following along, we were just in that deal to be extraction and a shipping hub, to facilitate fossil out of vene to go to russia?

[The_Honourable]

EXCLUSIVE: Trinidad asks U.S. to allow Venezuelan gas imports for LNG plant



By Curtis Williams and Marianna Parraga

PORT OF SPAIN (Reuters) - The government of Trinidad and Tobago is asking the United States to authorize Venezuelan gas imports to restart an idled liquefaction train in the Caribbean nation, four sources close to the talks said.

Under U.S. sanctions, companies and governments must obtain authorization from the U.S. Department of Treasury to do business with Venezuelan state-run oil company PDVSA.

Trinidad's past requests for U.S. approval have gone unanswered, but the U.S. Biden administration's willingness to ease some sanctions on Venezuela if President Nicolas Maduro and the opposition progress in talks for a presidential election could provide a new opportunity.

The gas would mainly come from Venezuela's Dragon field off the country's eastern cost, where PDVSA has found reserves of 4.2 trillion cubic feet (TCF). The project was headed for production almost a decade ago, but stalled over lack of capital and partners, and sanctions.

If approved, its gas could restart an idled liquefaction train with a 500 million cubic feet per day (cf/d) capacity at Trinidad's flagship Atlantic LNG project. The facility is a venture mainly including Shell, BP and state-owned National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago (NGC).

The U.S. Treasury Department declined to comment. Shell and NGC referred questions to the country's energy ministry, which did not reply to a request for comment. BP did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

"All we need is access to additional natural gas supply, right next door, to immediate proven resources of gas in Venezuela," said Trinidad's energy minister Stuart Young last month.

YEARS OF WORK AHEAD

Trinidad is Latin America's largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter, with installed capacity to process 4.2 billion cf/d into LNG, petrochemicals and power. But its gas production is just under 3 billion cf/d.

Even if Washington granted Trinidad's request, it could take years of investment and development to bring Venezuelan gas to Trinidad and boost LNG to Europe.

"They don't see Trinidad's solution as being sufficiently immediate for Europe," one of the people familiar with the matter said.

Starting the field is expected to take intensive engineering work and subsea inspections to check its wellhead integrity, which have not been made in years, experts said.

Early talks between Trinidad and Venezuela have focused on building a 17 kilometer (10.5 mile) long gas line to connect the two nations, according to the sources.

A pipeline originally earmarked for transporting Dragon's gas has been taken over by the Colibri offshore project between Shell and Trinidad's Heritage Petroleum Co., which delivered first gas in March.

That project follows an amended production sharing contract for the Manatee gas field in Trinidad, which extends to Venezuela's Loran field.

But despite a years-long effort to reach a deal to jointly develop the gas reservoirs, the Venezuelan fields remains completely idled, with no infrastructure installed. Maduro in 2020 gave green light to Trinidad to begin gas output on its side.

"Minister Young is working very hard on it," Trinidad finance minister Colm Imbert said during a business meeting last week. "He has been the liaison between the United States and Venezuela...all in an effort to develop that project and get the United States to go along with getting Venezuela to send gas to us."

(Reporting by Curtis Williams in Port of Spain and Marianna Parraga in Houston; Additional reporting by Daphne Psaledakis; Editing by Josie Kao)

Copyright 2022 Thomson Reuters.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy ... 022-11-04/

[sMASH]

Bring ting! Hopefully, the young dynasty wouldn't theif alllll the prifuts...

[MaxPower]

[88sins]

Somebody starting to feel the energy squeeze from their sanctions against a certain cold European giant

[bluefete]

Somebody starting to feel the energy squeeze from their sanctions against a certain cold European giant

This is a comment sMASH would make. LOL.

[De Dragon]

IMG_0991.JPG

IMG_0992.JPG

Ent Black Jack Fack say brace ollour self?
Which is it?

[SuperiorMan]

Young: T&T and Venezuela a 'perfect relationship'

T&T and Venezuela make a perfect pair when it comes to the global energy stage, Energy Minister Stuart Young believes.

And because of this Young made several visits to Washington DC last year to discuss the removal of sanctions placed by the United States.

"I made six or eight trips to Washington DC last year and they were at various levels throughout Washington DC including at the highest levels. We in T&T have taken a position and we have always held the position to follow the UN charter on the principle of non-intervention, non-interference," Young said.

"We have maintained very good relationships with the government in Venezuela. President Maduro is still the president of Venezuela which is what we have been saying from day one," he said.

The United States, during the Trump administration, had placed strict economic sanctions on the Maduro-led Venezuelan government in 2019 because it claimed the government was suppressing human rights in the country.

Young said while many other countries adopted similar positions to the US, the T&T government held steadfast in its handling of the situation.

"We continue to have that relationship because whether people want to open their eyes to it or not Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world and they have significant gas reserves," Young said.

"T&T has significant assets and infrastructure here at Pt Lisas and in Pt Fortin that convert gas to global commodities, that you can monetise, ammonia, methanol, urea, UAN, LNG so we have that capacity. So it is a perfect relationship," Young said.

Young said T&T and Venezuela have been friends for years because of where we are positioned.

"So there is that continuing relationship. As the population would have seen I made a number of trips last year to Caracas as well meeting with President Maduro, on some of those occasions and we continue to be in constant contact as we are in Washington DC at the highest levels," Young said.

Those visits seemed to have paid off.

On Tuesday Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley announced that the United States Government had approved T&T’s development of the Dragon Field via an OFAC Waiver from sanctions with specific terms to be finalised.

This means that the restrictions on the Dragon Gas Field development are now relieved and all relevant parties can progress the plans to result in natural gas from Venezuela.

Young spoke to the Business Guardian in a sit-down interview at his office located on the 26th floor at Tower C, of the International Waterfront Centre, Port-of-Spain.

From Young’s office, you can look out at the horizon of the Gulf of Paria.

But it was the type of energy future that T&T has on the horizon, that occupied Young’s mind.

“2023 is going to be an exciting year. My focus with the Ministry of Energy is to get the negotiations of the deepwater bids done with BP and Shell who have put in some bids on the deepwater because that is the next province for us,” he said.

Young said his goal is also to ensure that the ongoing bid round is handled smoothly.

On July 8 last year the Petroleum Regulations (Onshore and Nearshore Bidding) Order was published in the Gazette, signalling the start of the 2022 Onshore and Nearshore Competitive Bid Round.

A total of 11 blocks were made available for bidding including Aripero, Buenos Ayres, Charuma, Cipero, Cory D, Cory F, Guayaguayare, South West Peninsula Onshore, South West Peninsula Offshore, St. Mary’s and Tulsa.

Earlier this month 16 bids were received. The successful bids will be announced in three months.

The ministry is planning its Shallow Water Competitive Bid Round, which is expected to be launched within the first quarter of this year. Over twenty blocks are available for inclusion in this bid round.

Young said he also intends to “continue pushing Heritage and other persons who are onshore producers on the oil side” to continue working with the National Gas Company.

“We are going to have to have conversations this year with the downstreamers, meaning the pet chem companies, to make sure that there are gas contracts going forward in the future so there is a lot still going on. And also to continue to promote T&T,” Young said.

“So 2023 is going to continue to have a lot of activity, a lot of what we worked on will start coming in but we just have to keep pushing and I am also going to be looking at the fiscal for in particular oil and gas production to see how we may be able to tweak it to improve it to get more investment,” he said.

Young said he was still confident that the decision to shut down the refinery operations of Petrotrin was the right one

“I personally am a hard taskmaster so we are always pushing to get the best for the people of T&T, there are always improvements to be made I do think the restructuring of Petrotrin was a success as you have Heritage completely focused on the Exploration and Production,” he said.

The gas formula

With the high volatility with respect to global energy prices in recent times, Young said to try and counteract this T&T has instituted a new pricing formula for gas that will help spread our risk.

“The energy sector is very volatile and you are seeing that, so you saw prices years ago as low as US$180 metric tonnes for ammonia, last year it went up to US$1500 a metric tonne. Today it is just hovering around US$1,000 a metric tonne. You are seeing the same thing with the Henry Hub Price of gas,” Young said.

“One of the things we are particularly proud of is on the gas side we negotiated a formula for our gas so we have a mixture of JKM (Japan/Korea Marker) so that gives us some Asian market exposure and we have just negotiated between NBP (National Balancing Point) and TTF (Title Transfer Facility) which are two European markers,” he said.

“That is an excellent formula for us because you get the benefits of spreading your risk and people will see that all of those have brought higher prices for our gas in T&T than just being pegged on Henry Hub,” he said.

Young on second anniversary in Energy Ministry

April 19 marks exactly two years since Young was appointed this country’s Minister of Energy and Energy Industries following the untimely death of Franklin Khan.

Khan had held the position of Energy Minister since 2016.

Young said having worked with Khan during that period he feels his transition to the Energy Ministry had been seamless.

“It’s been seamless because I was assisting the previous ministers of energy since 2016 and had a particularly close working relationship with minister Khan and all of the big negotiations in the Energy sector that the government has been involved in since 2016, I have also been involved in so it was a very seamless transition,” Young said.

While Young declined to rate his own performance as Energy Minister, he believes he has done well so far.

“Of course being the substantive minister of energy you focus a lot more on energy and getting things done but I think it has gone well certainly from my perspective but I guess if you ask the energy stakeholders for their views they will give you their views,” Young said.

“I never grade myself, that is really for the stakeholders to do. I have done the best that I can and I have worked very closely, with the relationships in the sector but also spent a lot of time last year outside promoting T&T globally and hopefully the benefits of that will come home to roost,” he said.

A look back at 2022

“I think the biggest thing we have achieved as the government of T&T since 2015 to now is the renegotiation of the price formula and structures both on the LNG side as well as standing with NGC, in how they price and the price formulas that they use for their sale of gas because I can say without fear of contradiction that all of those have lead to material and tangible benefits for the people of T&T,” Young said.

“My strong belief is the resources are ours, meaning as citizens of T&T the prime minister mandated let us get better, more favourable and more equitable returns for T&T whilst balancing it with keeping foreign investment in T&T and I think we have successfully achieved that despite a lot of naysayers telling us at different times that we are going to destroy the industry, that foreign investment is going to dry up we have seen the exact opposite over the passage of time and we were always just focused on it,” he said.

Young also hailed the separation of the Loran-Manatee gas field and T&T being a fertile land for investment.

“We’ve pulled off a new PSC (production sharing contract) for Manatee, we’ve delinked the Loran side from Loran-Manatee, we’ve gotten bp to continue investing in T&T, Shell is invested heavily in T&T, we’ve kept EOG here, we’ve just managed the Woodside transition when they bought over BHP because you have to understand, Trinidadians have to understand when that takes place and have new management, new owners they look at their asset base, their global asset base and they can decide okay well T&T is no longer going to be a part of this asset base that we have purchased and they sell it off or they just drop it,” he said.

The renewables balancing act

Young said T&T needs to strike the right balance with the energy transition.

“A hydrocarbon-based economy is going to continue using hydrocarbons and we did not want the use of hydrocarbons to be drowned out in the conversation of the energy transition,” Young said.

“Gas is going to be around for decades to come, gas is the cleanest source of fossil fuel so we made sure to get out there speak to the right audiences, speak to the right people, and I think that has worked and people are focused on the continued production of oil and gas in particular with T&T can do for energy security,” he said.

“Of course, you have to have renewables so I am balancing that because we also are aware of the deleterious effects of the global climate change and I am particularly focused on that but you must have a balance because nobody can depend on solely on renewables,” he said.

Young said T&T will therefore be focused on decarbonisation.

“We have already signed the methane pledge so we are trying to clean up methane which is actually more harmful than carbon dioxide and these are things we are doing but we are doing renewables as well,” he said.

“I am particularly proud that by the end of last year after a long set of negotiation, you have seen that we signed the agreement for the largest solar farms in the English-speaking Caricom 112.2 megawatts, project Lara,” Young said.

https://guardian.co.tt/business/young-t ... 23e1827995