A view of the Aban Pearl gas rig in the Caribbean sea, along the Venezuelan coast. May 6, 2010. Photo: PDVSA.
Trinidad and Tobago’s Minister of Energy and Energy Industries Stuart Young announced that his government received a license from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Department of the Treasury to move forward with a binational oil and gas project alongside Venezuela.
“The Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago has received a specific license from OFAC, United States Treasury, to continue the exploration, production, and export of gas with the government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela for the Cocuina-Manakin hydrocarbon field,” wrote the top Trinidadian official.
The Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago has received a specific licence from OFAC at US Treasury to pursue the exploration, production and export of gas with the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela for the Cocuina-Manakin hydrocarbon field.
— Stuart R Young (@StuartRYoung1) May 29, 2024
The oil and gas project between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago in the Cocuina-Manakin cross-border hydrocarbon field “will become the most important gas hub in the Caribbean,” said the Venezuela’s minister of petroleum and president of its publicly owned petroelum group Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), Pedro Rafael Tellechea.
Last December, Venezuela granted Trinidad and Tobago a license for the extraction and export of gas, with the participation of the British hydrocarbon company Shell, in the Dragon field, located in the waters of the Venezuelan state of Sucre (in the northeast), next to the northwest coast of Trinidad.
Caracas seeks to certify more than 50 gas concessions, with which it hopes to become the fourth-largest reserve in the world and reach new markets.
More licenses to operate in Venezuela
Recently, the Spanish oil company REPSOL and the Italian company ENI received a license from the US imperialist agency OFAC to continue their operations linked to oil activity in Venezuela. This license was granted after the expiration of OFAC General License No. 44 last April.
The United States government has received between 20 and 50 individual license applications from companies seeking to conduct business in Venezuela’s oil industry, after Washington abandoned a short-lived sanction relief strategy on April of this year.
Businessmen from the energy world trust in the profitability of the oil business in Venezuela despite the illegal sanctions imposed by Washington against millions of Venezuelans.
(Últimas Noticias) by Randolf Borges
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SL
