- NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 14/Aug 02:29

Expert: Venezuela no threat to ExxonMobil deal

FOREIGN affairs expert Dr Anthony Gonzales does not consider Venezuela to pose any threat to a massive deal struck between TT and ExxonMobil search and drill for oil and gas in ultra-deep waters 150 miles off the east coast of Trinidad. The former head of the Institute of International Relations, UWI, St Augustine, spoke to Newsday on August 13. On August 12, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and ExxonMobil VP John Ardill signed a production-sharing contract, expected to bring US$16-US$21 billion worth of investment. Seismic surveys and eventual exploratory drilling will take place in waters said to cover an area larger than Trinidad, created by the merger of seven blocks of marine acreage covering 2,700 square miles (7,000 square kilometres) and at a depth of 6,500 feet (2,000 metres). This is the TTUD1 block. It abuts on Guyana’s Stabroek block, part of which lays in disputed waters. Gonzales remarked of Guyana, “In the disputed economic zone, the area of the sea offshore, the Venezuelans are saying there should be no drilling of oil there until that matter is settled. They have sought to prevent ExxonMobil from doing any kind of seismic research there and any drilling.” Previously, TT’s energy hopes had lain in Venezuela’s dragon gas field, estimated to hold 4.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, but the Donald Trump administration withdrew TT’s licence to receive such gas – previously granted by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), despite a 30 year lease granted by Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro regime to TT under the former government of Dr Keith Rowley. With US sanctions, amid allegations of electoral fraud and narco-trafficking levelled against Maduro – against whom the US recently doubled its bounty to US$50 million – the Persad-Bissessar government has sought TT’s energy fortunes elsewhere including the possibility of sourcing gas from Grenada, Guyana and Suriname. Venezuelan interior minister Diosdado Cabello a few days ago rekindled claims that he and Maduro had made in June that TT was serving as a base from which infiltrators were launching efforts to destabilise the Venezuelan government. He alleged a terrorist known as El Flaco had plotted to detonate explosives at a national celebration, recently at Plaza Venezuela in Caracas. When the Venezuelan officials had first made allegations about a TT-based terrorist, Persad-Bissessar had threatened to “blast out of the water” any unidentified (Venezuelan naval) vessel approaching TT, but Diosdado reacted by calling her remarks “crazy.” The Venezuelans had named a TT national whom they dubbed an infiltrator but the man’s friends said he was no mastermind but hustled to earn a living on Trinidad’s coast such as by selling fish. Regional tensions also arose from Venezuela’s voicing of its long-standing claim to two-thirds of the area of Guyana, known as the Essequibo, arguing Guyana must not exploit resources in the oil-rich area until the protracted territorial dispute is decided upon at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands. Caricom – including the prominent figures of then TT prime minister Rowley, Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley and St Vincent prime minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves – had played a key role in calming tensions by hosting a meeting in St Vincent between Maduro and Guyana president Dr Irfaan Ali. Guyana has complained that Venezuelan naval vessels have harassed Exxon’s oil-drilling platforms in the waters off of Essequibo. Newsday asked Gonzales if the TT-ExxonMobil deal could be threatened by Venezuela, especially given the existing tensions between ExxonMobil and Venezuela in the Essequibo, and between the Persad-Bissessar and Maduro regimes? Gonzales replied no and explained why. “I don’t see a problem for us, because Exxon is coming to drill in our waters. These are accepted waters. They are not waters in dispute with Venezuela. “So I don’t see what problem the Venezuelans would have there. We are entitled to give out these blocks to whoever we want for them to drill there.” Gonzales said ExxonMobil’s problems with Venezuela dated back to when the company’s facilities were nationalised (in 2007) by former president Hugo Chavez (serving from 1999-2013), but with the Texas company complaining of inadequate compensation. “That is a matter between ExxonMobil and the Venezuelan government. I don’t see it as affecting us. “So I don’t see any problem in proceeding with ExxonMobil, if they are interested in drilling here.” Gonzales reckoned that part of the problem was that TTUD1 block was very close to the disputed area in the Essequibo (where ExxonMobil would like to drill.) “Maybe because the problems they are having drilling in the Venezuelan waters, they would like to come here (TT) and drill here instead, I don’t know. “There is speculation the US Navy would move in to stop the Venezuelans interfering with ExxonMobil. People have been speculating. “But I don’t see it having any problem with Trinidad here. They are different matters.” The post Expert: Venezuela no threat to ExxonMobil deal appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.