Trinidad's
PM :Energy
issues with Venezuela on hold
Miraflores
press photo
PM Maning with President Chavez in Caracas, March 2007
PORT
SPAIN
Petroleumworld.com, Jan 6, 2007
Prime
Minister Patrick Manning said yesterday that the bilateral
arrangement between Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela for
unitization of the hydrocarbons reserves in our maritime
boundaries with venezuela, was on hold.
Manning
was speaking after a tour of the first five-star hotel in
Trinidad and Tobago, the Hyatt Hotel, at the Government's
Waterfront Project site on Wrightson Road, Port of Spain.
He said the Trinidad proposal that
unitization treaty to produced
the gas on the boundaries of Trinidad and Tobago
was being opposed by the Venezuela Energy Minister. He said
when
the
last talks were held in Caracas, early last year , Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez promise to visit Trinidad and Tobago
in one
May and
that
did not happen.
"So
the ball is by no means in the court of Trinidad and Tobago," Manning
was responding to an Express
editorial on the subject.
On
the PetroCaribe issue, Manning specifically said that the energy
cooperation agreement of Venezuela with the caribbean countries
was
part of a bigger issue, that of a proposed a rival to the
Free Trade Agreement of the Americas
or in Spanish Área de Libre Comercio de las Américas
(ALCA), called Bolivariana para las Américas (ALBA). Manning
said Trinidad and Tobago had been convincing
its Caricom colleagues to make this country the headquarters
of the FTAA.
Manning
said TT had been leading an effort with
its Caricom colleagues to make this country the headquarters
of the FTAA.
"How
in the face of that, could we now go and sign into an agreement
which scuttles the FTAA and introduces a new alternative,
without any consensus within the Caribbean?" the Prime
Minister asked, according to local newspapers.
"Do
not assume we are the villains, Trinidad and Tobago's position
in this matter has been exemplary."
Story by Elio Ohep from Petroleumworld Trinidad.
Petroleumworld, January 3rd 2008
Copyright© 2007 Petroleumworld. All rights
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