Quevedo: Dragon gas in 2 years

Venezuela’s energy minister Manuel Quevedo has given a two-year target for first gas from the Dragon field.

“We have already concluded the agreements signed by (Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro) and are now with the companies, PDVSA (Venezuela’s state oil company) and the National Gas Company (NGC),” Quevedo said through a translator yesterday at a press conference following the 20th Ministerial Meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF). The two-day event was hosted by TT at the Hyatt Regency, Port of Spain and featured high-ranking energy officials from the GECF’s 19-member and observer countries, as well as Caricom energy ministers. Quevedo was elected the next president of the GECF at the meeting and will assume his new position when current president, TT Energy Minister Franklin Khan’s term expires at the end of this year.

It might take a maximum of two years to have the “first molecules” from Dragon to Trinidad, but from the point of view of PDVSA, it might probably take less time, perhaps a year and a half, since most of the work is already in place, Quevedo said.

In August, after nearly two years of negotiations, Rowley and Maduro signed a government-to-government agreement to reinforce the commitment between the two countries to carry through Dragon gas agreement.

NGC and PDVSA, however, signed a term sheet, which is a non-binding agreement that sets the terms and conditions under which the agreement will be made. Quevedo, who has direct oversight of PDVSA was asked when the sales agreement would be signed. He did not directly answer, giving instead the expected time-frame for supply, which has already been announced as 2020. He added that this deal was “an important example of international cooperation.”

“Work with this field is one of the examples of co-operation in the world. It will feed the domestic market of Venezuela and domestic market of Trinidad and part of this production will also go to exports for world markets.

“Most important, we have a fair price for this—the producing country, consuming country and world gas markets,” Quevedo said.

He added that while not as fast as Dragon, progress has been made with Loran-Manatee, a cross border field off the south-eastern coast of Trinidad. “We are quite close.”

Teams are working hard and technical aspects are already consolidated and we are now working on final aspects of integration between two countries,” he said.