DRAGON GAS DEAL SIGNING MOVED TO VENEZUELA

Concerns over yesterday’s 6.9 earthquake have led to a date and time change for the much-anticipated Dragon gas deal signing ceremony. The deal will allow TT to process natural gas from the Dragon field, located completely in Venezuelan territory.

Initially scheduled for today, the Communications Ministry in a media release late last night said the new date and time will be on Saturday in Caracas, Venezuela.

“This was requested and acceded to due to the concerns about the earthquake today,” the release said. Communications Minister Stuart Young has been spearheading the Dragon deal since its inception nearly two years ago.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley will lead the TT delegation, which will include representatives of the National Gas Company (NGC). Other government ministers, representatives from Shell— which has the rights to drill in the field— and officials from Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA are also expected to attend.

In late June, Stuart Young, then a Minister of State in the Officer of the Prime Minister, had said while discussions were almost complete, price was the main sticking point.

In December 2016, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley had visited Venezuela, and along with that country’s President, Nicolas Maduro, signed an agreement that put the plan in motion for TT to process Dragon’s gas.

First gas then was estimated estimated by 2020; that timeline is still on track. Young had given reporters gave a timeline of 18 months to two years to get first gas here—providing the deal is signed soon.

A special purpose vehicle between multinational energy giant Shell and the National Gas Company (NGC) has been created to lay down the infrastructure; Shell’s pipelines, including those in the North Coast Marine Acreage will be used to transport Dragon’s gas to the Hibiscus platform off the north-west coast of Trinidad and only 18 kilometres away from the gas field. Hibiscus is jointly owned by the TT government and Shell. The first tranche of Dragon’s production will yield about 150 million standard cubic feet of gas per day (mmscfd), or 26,505 barrel of oil equivalent per day (boed). For comparison, Petrotrin produces 43,000 barrels of oil per day and 130 mmscfd; bpTT’s Juniper well, which came on stream in the latter half of 2017, produces about 590 mmscfd.

The Dragon field is part of the Mariscal Sucre natural gas complex off the Caribbean coast of Venezuela, north west of Trinidad— and near the epicenter of yesterday’s quake. Dragon is just one of the fields in a total acreage reserve of 14.7 trillion cubic feet of gas. Dragon alone contains 2.4 tcf.