Dragon in the Hibiscus

These images of fiery power and floral delicacy symbolise the historic energy agreement signed this past Monday between the governments of Trinidad and Tobago (TT) and Venezuela.

It is an agreement which allows TT and Venezuela’s energy companies, National Gas Company (NGC) and PdVSA (Petr?leos de Venezuela, SA) and international giant, Royal Dutch Shell, to work together on the delivery of natural gas from fields offshore Venezuela’s north eastern coastline to Trinidad.

The pipeline will run from Venezuela’s Dragon gas field to the Hibiscus Platform, owned by Shell, on to land at Trinidad’s Point Lisas Industrial Estate where the gas would be processed and sold.

TT will be given priority in purchasing the gas.

It was an occasion which had TT Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro dancing around in a conga line with folk dancers, after the signing ceremony following hour-long private talks at the Presidential Palace in Caracas.

“The objective of today’s signing was to identify the resources in Venezuela, identify the processes by which we’ll bring those resources to market, identify the agencies and all the protocols involved in giving life to a particular project (Dragon gas field),” Rowley revealed to local media on Monday evening, at the VIP Lounge, Piarco International Airport, on his return from the day-long Official Visit to Venezuela.

“We are talking about an agreement between the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, and the Government of Venezuela,” Rowley added, “to bring Venezuelan gas by specific identification of pipeline and platform, and specific usage in TT.

In short, we now have a project and the Government-to-Government heads of agreement that’s been signed today, and the heads of agreement between the operating agencies (NGC, PdVSA, Shell).” Rowley also told members of the media corps who had accompanied him on the visit that “the existence (of the) Hibiscus platform,” which Shell now owns thanks to its acquisition of British Gas (BG) earlier this year, “has been a major impetus in putting this project together.” Rowley explained that the “confidentiality aspects” of the agreement meant he was unable to provide the media with certain details. This was also due, the PM added, to the fact that some details “are still to be worked out at the level of (the) heads of agreement of (the) operating companies.” However, he did quote from page five, article two of the agreement, titled Obligations of the Parties, “so that you as the media in TT can be properly apprised of exactly what we have agreed to today (Monday).” “The parties (Governments of TT and Venezuela) agree to take reasonable steps to facilitate: (a) The development, construction, operation and maintenance of one or more pipelines from the Mariscal Sucre region in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the Republic of TT, including a pipeline from the Dragon field to the Hibiscus platform, known in the agreement as the pipeline; (b) The delivery of gas from fields in the north-eastern offshore area of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, known as the Mariscal Sucre region, to the Republic of TT; and (c) The sale of natural gas volumes to the domestic gas market of TT, as a priority, and international markets.” Rowley noted that, as of December 5, “these companies are authorised by both governments to proceed to operationalise that project.” When Business Day asked if the government-to-government agreement included a specific date by which gas from Venezuela’s Dragon field would be piped to TT; which Rowley previously noted is located “to the north of us here, just beyond the Bocas”, the PM said a date of 2020 was included but efforts are being made to achieve an earlier start date.

“In preparation for the decision that the development of this project should proceed, one of the things that was taken on board is TT’s need for gas up to 2031.

And also, our immediate need, our short-term need and medium-term.

The plans are, in the agreement, we look at latest 2020 but today (Monday), what the President (Maduro) agreed to, and we in TT agreed to, is that if it could be done in 10 months, it should be done in five months.” “So in fact, while the analysis of the static situation is a 2020 deadline,” Rowley continued, “we are working towards a much earlier date. Therefore, what we are looking at for TT is not an immediate gas supply to our shortfall situation but treating with a worsening situation in the near to medium term.” “If we are able to have the pipeline works and the platform works and so on done in 24 months, then that would be a tremendous improvement but in the meantime, we could look towards the gas utilisation because we now know that there will be gas at some time, which is a situation that was of great concern to us when the opposite was beginning to loom as true,” the PM said.

Rowley was accompanied on his official visit by a high-powered delegation that included Energy Minister Franklin Khan, Minister of Foreign and CARICOM Affairs Dennis Moses, Minister in the Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs Stuart Young, Petrotrin Chairman Professor Andrew Jupiter, NGC Chairman Gerry Brooks and Chief of Defence Staff Brigadier General Rodney Smart.

The only persons to make official statements during the trip were Rowley and Maduro. While the PM answered questions from the TT media upon the contingent’s return to Piarco Monday evening, Maduro declined to take questions following the signing at the Presidential Palace.

He did however speak for just under 17 minutes about many things, chief among them, how this agreement will allow TT to commercialise the Dragon gas field would be of mutual benefit to both countries.

“Venezuela is the country of opportunities to invest in oil, gas, and other areas. We have 15 engines that we are developing in a new strategic vision, 15 powerful engines of the economy. We are going to work together, we are going to be good partners, we are going to look for new roads, if we had any problems in the past. We are going forward. So you are invited to work and all the international companies that want to work within this vision, welcome.” Referring to the “clear (economic) difficulties” facing the Venezuelan people, Maduro said, “all of these investments are necessary for our country, as well as being of mutual benefit (to TT). These are very necessary for our country because these incomes (will provide) a new system of income collection.

International co-operation for economic stability and the development of our nation, it is very important to be on top of these projects. It is very important,” Maduro reiterated. Speaking about the Dragon gas field, he said the “regulatory framework, the constitutional and legal framework.

are clear and all investments in Venezuela are guaranteed their success, present and future.

“We also celebrate this partnership with Shell to develop this project and we also ask them in the same way to accelerate everything,” Maduro stated.