TT and Barbados sign gas agreement

Barbados and TT governments have signed a unitisation agreement for collective oil and gas exploration on Monday and this agreement is expected to be the first of several initiatives by both countries to strengthen diplomatic ties, according to Prime Minister Dr Rowley.

Speaking at a post Cabinet media briefing on Thursday, Dr Rowley said the energy agreement between TT and Barbados was in effect as exploration into Barbados continued. He said the agreement would ensure both countries are given a fair share of any pockets of gas found. “This agreement means that in the event the exploration is successful in identifying any commercially viable resources, TT and Barbados would have already agreed to extract those resources on a unitised basis, meaning that if the pools cross the borders from one territory into another, there will be no difficulties in extracting oil on the other side of the territory.

“These developments will allow us to bring to the market at a much earlier period anything we may find. It also opens the door to improved seismic work across the border and Barbados has also granted exploration in two of their blocks which conjoins with TT so this unitisation is a major step forward for offshore exploration.”

Rowley said both countries were also focused on including renewable sources of energy in their plans for greater sustainability and development. “Just today Cabinet took a decision to continue with our renewable energy initiative. We came to the point where two companies BP and Shell won the proposal and Cabinet agreed that we should advance to that.”

He also said both countries were interested in expanding into Africa for various trade missions and to enhance the state of diplomatic ties, citing the opening of an office both Barbados and TT will be sharing in Kenya.