Caricom
seeks PetroCaribe talks with Caracas
The
Trinidad Guardian
KINGSTOWN
Petroleumworldtt.com
02 25 07
Prime Minister Patrick Manning and two of his Caribbean
Community (Caricom) colleagues are seeking a meeting
with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to discuss
the PetroCaribe deal and other energy matters.
Manning, in confirming plans for the proposed meeting
that would also be attended by Barbados Prime Minister
Owen Arthur, said Caricom’s chairman St Vincent
and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves,
was being pressed into service to secure a meeting
with the Venezuelan president who was scheduled
to arrive in St Vincent over the weekend to open
an oil storage facility.
Speaking at the end of the mid-term
Caricom Heads of Government conference, Manning
said issues up for discussion would be ironing out
problems occasioned by several Caribbean countries
signing the PetroCaribe agreement with Venezuela,
as well as the development of two major gas fields
discovered near the Trinidad- Venezuela border.
Manning, the Caricom prime minister
with lead responsibility for energy, said the PetroCaribe
deal brought several complications as it shifted
the regional dominant energy supplier from Trinidad
to Venezuela.
“As is traditional in the
industry, one of the responsibilities of the dominant
supplier is the responsibility to guarantee energy
security so it complicates matters considerably
and as we have always been of the view as far as
the way forward is concerned, discussions will have
to take place between Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela.
“These are just the realities
that face us and while they are not insurmountable
they have in fact played a significant part in our
thinking and have affected our ability to achieve
the objectives that we have set ourselves,”
he added.
However, he said that as it was
losing its position as dominant Caribbean energy
supplier, Trinidad was seeking to divert its attention
to other markets and would not be responsible for
supplying fellow Caricom countries with energy products
in the occasion of any break in supply.
“The industry operates on
the basis of long term contracts and therefore if
we have to shift the markets from the Caribbean
to say, North America...all of our output would
be committed to our new markets, therefore in the
event of a disruption of supply we would not be
able to keep the market satisfied,” Manning
added.
He said the current “tight”
gas supply situation in Trinidad and Tobago did
not allow for the oil-rich country to honour a 2004
agreement with Jamaica to supply liquefied natural
gas (LNG) for use in an aluminum project there or
a later agreement to supply piped gas to Barbados
for electricity generating purposes.
“Our exploration efforts have
not yet borne fruit as you know in the energy sector,
in the petroleum industry, it is all a question
of investment, exploration and a matter of time,”
he added.
He said he was hopeful that the
situation could soon be eased as Trinidad and Venezuela
last week signed a technical unitisation agreement
on the development of the oil find between the two
countries and he was hopeful that his Cabinet and
the Venezuela Congress would soon approve the agreement.
Manning said the two sides would
go into deeper discussions at the political level
on exploiting the oil finds once the technical agreement
was approved. (CMC)
The
Trinidad Guardian
Monday 19th February, 2007
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©2007 The Trinidad Guardian. All Rights Reserved.
