With Venezuela’s vast gas reserves and T&T’s underused energy infrastructure creating a powerful regional opportunity, cross-border energy cooperation was a topic of discussion at yesterday’s Energy Conference.
Mala Baliraj, chair of the Energy Chamber of T&T, acknowledged the potential opportunities in her speech.
“There are two projects listed on this map where the major factor delaying execution is beyond Trinidad and Tobago’s direct control, namely the Shell/NGC investment in the Dragon field in Venezuela and the bp/NGC investment in the Manakin/Cocuina cross-border field. Recent changes in Venezuela might offer new hope that these two projects can move toward implementation,” Baliraj said.
“These two projects also need to be seen in a wider context. Venezuela holds massive gas reserves, somewhere in the region of 200 trillion cubic feet. Many of these are in non-associated gas fields in the east of the country, including offshore in both the Patao, Mejillones, Río Caribe, and Dragón complex to the northwest of Trinidad and the Plataforma Deltana area, off Trinidad’s southeast coast.”
She said given the proximity of these resources to existing Trinidad gas infrastructure, it made “excellent sense for both Trinidad and Venezuela to use Trinidadian infrastructure.”
