A license granted by OFAC to the oil company Shell and Trinidad and Tobago to exploit gas resources in Venezuela prohibits the payment of royalties and taxes to the Venezuelan government
The Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Keith Rowley, contacted Venezuela and agreed to exploratory meetings to try to reach an agreement through which they can import Venezuelan gas, according to Reuters.
The information agency reported that, given the deep gas deficit suffered by Trinidad and Tobago, the Rowley government will try to convince the Venezuelan authorities to allow operations of the energy company Shell Plc in the Dragon gas field, located on the Venezuelan side of the border. Maritime between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago.
In this regard, a delegation from Trinidad and Tobago headed by the Minister of Energy, Stuart Young, will leave for Caracas in the coming days to start discussions about exploiting the gas field.
These negotiations are possible now that Trinidad and Tobago obtained – after almost a year of insistence – a license of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the United States Department of the Treasury, which allows Shell to operate in Venezuelan territory with Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) as long as the Maduro government does not obtain royalties, similar to the agreement it reached Chevron at the end of last year.
Rowley’s mission now will be to convince the Venezuelan authorities to allow these operations without receiving monetary compensation in exchange, so they must find a non-monetary alternative to exchange for gas.
“The Maduro regime will not be allowed to receive any kind of cash payment for this project,” a US official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
*Read also: PDVSA reactivates the first drilling rig after three years without operations
The same source indicated that the decision to grant the license to Trinidad and Tobago was made after diplomatic meetings between Vice President Kamala Harris and Caribbean leaders, who discussed working on efforts to guarantee the region’s energy security and reduce dependency. of resources from countries outside the region, such as Russia.
He Dragon field, is a gas field located in the Paria Peninsula, Sucre state. It was discovered in 1985 and belongs to PDVSA, so any joint project must go through the authorization of the Venezuelan state, despite the fact that due to a lack of investment, the project has been inactive for more than a decade.
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