PM:
Venezuela could control region's oil
By
Roxanne
Stapleton
Trinidad
Express
Port
Spain
Petroleumworld.com
09 10 06
THE problem with Venezuela's oil facility known
as Petrocaribe is that "initially it never
acknowledged the existence of a refining industry
in Trinidad and Tobago", Prime Minister Patrick
Manning said yesterday.
Placing the statement in context,
Manning who spoke at the BG Trinidad and Tobago
Luncheon Series held at the Hilton, said: "The
Caribbean for us is our prime market, the Caribbean
for us is a significant market, we sell about 60,000
barrels per day in the market- all kinds of products
and much of the products we sell is derived from
Venezuelan crudes, we buy crudes from Venezuela
for that purpose.
"We produce now just about
150,000 barrels per day, we refine at Pointe a Pierre
about 60,000 barrels of our domestic crude or just
about that and we buy about 90,000 barrels-we did
not think that Trinidad and Tobago could afford
a loss of that market."
Explaining further, Manning clarified:
"What Venezuela proposed was that these countries
would have access to products from Venezuela, transported
in ships controlled by Venezuela, in storage stored
in their own countries owned and controlled in joint
ventures between Venezuela and a state entity.
"The immediate effect of that
is as follows... the minute that you establish your
own storage, the storage controlled by the multinationals
will be of no value to them and they're likely to
leave.
"If the multinationals leave,
then we are left with a situation where Venezuela
becomes the dominant player."
Trinidad Express
Wednesday, September 6th 2006
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