PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad – Former prime minister Dr. Keith Rowley Friday suggested that the Kamla Persad Bissessar administration should eat “humble pie” and seek to hold talks with the Venezuelan government on the Dragon Gas deal, now that the United States has provided Port of Spain with a new Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) licence.
Former prime minister Dr. Keith Rowley, speaking at news conference on Friday (CMC Photo)“I would say in international relations countries sometimes are very far apart, but when they examine their interests, they eat humble pie and …ensuring that their interests take priority over their egos. Countries have to do that from time to time,” Rowley told a news conference, less than 24 hours after the government said it had received the OFAC licence from Washington.
“If you misstep you have a duty to walk it back and you now have to rely on your counterpart, accepting as a new convert, but to come and try to pretend your arrangement that you settle with somebody else is a new improvement is just to be gas lighting a whole nation, everybody with their eyes wide open,” Rowley said.
On Thursday, Attorney General, John Jeremie said that the United States Treasury Department had granted a six-month window under a newly OFAC licence, allowing the Kamla Persad government and the National Gas Company (NGC) to formally engage in negotiations with Venezuela on the development of the Dragon Gas project.
Jeremie told reporters that the new OFAC licence was “issued under certain executive orders and it authorises US persons, including employees, affiliates, contractors and service providers employed by or acting on behalf of or for the direct or indirect benefit of the Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, the National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Ltd, Shell, PLC, Futura Clara Limited, and their subsidiaries and their affiliates and contractors to engage in transactions ordinarily incident and necessary to negotiations with the government of Venezuela and Petroleos, the Venezuela executives in connection with the Dragon gas project.”
He said that the licence was awarded after an application was made by the government, which came to office following the April 28 general election, Government and the NGC on May 19.
“First of all, it allows us to enter into negotiations with Venezuela, which at the present time would be prohibited under sanctions. We have six months to negotiate. Within parameters,” Jeremie said, adding that the six-month period is valid until April 2026.
Jeremie, however, declined to share details about the commercial terms, adding that the government has already begun to take the permitted steps pursuant to the licence to advance the project.
“We have a window of opportunity and the government is moving assiduously to exploit that,” he reiterated without providing details.
In April, the United States government revoked the OFAC licence granted to Trinidad and Tobago to allow Shell, the National Gas Company (NGC), and contractors to explore, produce, and export natural gas from the Venezuelan Dragon Gas Field.
The licence was valid until October 31, 2025, and enabled Trinidad and Tobago to pay for gas in various currencies and through humanitarian measures. On December 21, 2023, Trinidad and Tobago also secured a 30-year exploration and production license from the government of Venezuela for the Dragon gas field.
Washington had also revoked the Cocuina-Manakin license granted to Port of Spain on May 31, 2024.
Port of Spain had been planning to request an extension from Washington for a licence granted to Shell and the NGC to develop the Dragon gas project in Venezuela.
The license, issued in early 2023, allows the companies to plan the project. The project aims to supply gas to Trinidad by 2027. The Dragon Field is located in Venezuelan waters near the maritime border with Trinidad.
Persad Bissessar, when in opposition had been critical of the then People’s National Movement (PNM) decision to pursue the Dragon gas deal and soon after coming to office in April, declared the project was “dead”.
In addition, the then opposition had been critical of the Nicolas Maduro administration urging Washington to impose sanctions on Port of Spain for seeking to engage the Maduro government on the gas project.
Rowley told reporters that he had been involved in the negotiations with Caracas dating back to 2016 after Trinidad and Tobago had been experiencing a gas shortage to provide support to many projects ongoing here.
He dismissed a statement by Jeremie on Thursday that the last government had spent in excess of 100 million dollars (One TT dollar=US$0.16 cents) in trying to get the Dragon Gas deal going, saying the present government should make clear the conditions included in the new OFAC licence.
Jeremie had told reporters that the Drago Gas project is “alive” adding “you have to hit commercial targets for US companies. We don’t think those targets are hard to meet.
“They are reasonable … It’s a commercial win-win for all of the parties. The United States benefits from this arrangement. There are terms and conditions in the licence which ensure that US companies benefit and there are tiers as to exactly how they should benefit. Trinidad obviously stands to benefit and to a certain extent, of course, the people of Venezuela will benefit.”
Rowley said he is confident that the population “would see where we are at now as against where we were or could have been and what is required now is for the government of Trinidad and Tobago to do no further harm.”
Rowley, who traced the project’s timeline from 2016 and the involvement of his then energy minister Stuart Young in the negotiations, said the Drag field with its four trillion cubic feet of gas, is very much a necessity for the future development of Trinidad and Tobago.
He told reporters that the Attorney General was “very careful “ not to tell the general public what the government had always been calling for when in opposition, “which is transparency.
‘We told the country what the two-year OFAC licence had contained, we told the country why we had to go and renegotiate when the Americans said you can’t pay for the gas in cash. We told the country when we got that settled.
‘I cannot say after that moon show yesterday that I know what the term of that OFAC licence is. I know the AG was very cagey in not telling us what the details are and if I am to believe him, it is for six months and there is no way a six-month licence could be an improvement on a two-year licence.
“There is no way a licence that was broad covering all the bases could be inferior to one that you are now out on a leach and you walk in step and you get permission to go through the next step if you meet certain bench marks,” Rowley said, adding “I don’t know what the bench marks are.
”So I don’t know enough about the details of that to comment further,” he said reiterating that his administration had not spent the estimated 120 million dollars as statement by Jeremie on advancing the Dragon Gas project.
Asked by reporters to comment on the government providing its “full support” to the United States in its war on drugs in the Caribbean, while also indicating that it has nothing against the people of Venezuela, Rowley, who said he was forced to break his silence on the Dragon Gas deal issue, said “as a former prime minister who lived this situation before, especially one that led the CARICOM (Caribbean Community) position on this issue, I would reserve my comments”.
Rowley said he was doing so “because I don’t want to further inflame or embarrass anybody. I simply want to state that this little nation must be aware that nobody owes us lunch and everybody we deal with have their interest to protect and our skills and our success will be determined by whether we protected our interest.
“This is a serious matter where the facts and the facts alone should guide us. Policies, diplomacy, diplomatic moves are matters for the governments. If our government finds itself in a situation where it cannot do what is required…then you know you have a problem with the government”.
But he recalled when Maduro was given eight days in office and the western countries were seeking his removal and regime change was spoken about as the objective, CARICOM took the matter before the United Nations so as to determine “just who should we deal with in Caracas.
“The way these things go you need support, a small area like the CARICOM when you get on the international stage …you can’t allow to be brushed off and our position was we might be small, but we are not insignificant.”
Rowley said that when the situation arose, Trinidad and Tobago had already began lobbying for a position on the United Nations Security Council to replace St. Vincent and the Grenadines, adding “I want to ask the government if they are still pursuing that and how it is going”.
Meanwhile Prime Minister Persad Bissessar says she remains optimistic after holding talks with representatives from three major energy companies on Thursday.
In a statement on Friday, the Energy Ministry said the prime minister met with high-level representatives from BPTT, Proman, and Woodside to engage in discussions on matters of mutual interest and to explore new avenues for collaboration. It said that Jeremie, Energy Minister Dr Roodal Moonilal and Minister in the Energy Ministry, Ernesto Kesar, also participated in those talks.
“These strategic meetings underscored the vital importance of strong partnerships in advancing Trinidad and Tobago’s energy sector and ensuring lasting benefits for our citizens,” Persad Bissessar said according to a statement issued by the Office of the Prime Minister.
“Government continues to deepen energy security by strengthening our partnerships with major energy companies, ensuring that TT remains a competitive and attractive destination for investment.
” By building and maintaining these vital international partnerships, my Government is ensuring that TT continues to harness its energy resources strategically and responsibly, securing a stronger and more prosperous future for all,” she added.
