Young to visit Venezuela again as Dragon deal negotiations continue

Energy Minister Stuart Young is planning a third visit to Caracas, Venezuela, in continuing conversations with energy ministers and other officials there on developing the Dragon gas field, a Reuters report onThursday said.

Speaking to Reuters at CERAWeek, an annual energy conference in Houston, Texas, Young said TT has held substantive talks with Venezuela on developing the gas field which holds up to 4.2TSF of natural gas.

This comes a little over a month after Young visited Caracas with a TT delegation to discuss a list of matters, including matters regarding hydrocarbons and joint projects. Venezuelan state media reported that Venezuela's vice-president Delcy Rodriguez welcomed the TT delegation which included NGC chairman Mark Loquan and Ambassador to Caracas Edmund Dillon.

Young was reported as saying if negotiations continue to go well, both countries could see gas flowing in as little as two years’ time.

At CERAWeek, Young said along with the ongoing negotiations on the Dragon Gas field, TT is looking at two other projects, namely Woodside Energy’s Calypso project and Shell’s Manatee project as potential feeders into its Atlantic LNG facility. He, however, said it could take years before production starts on these fields.

Young also visited CEO of Woodside Energy, Meg O’Neil, at their office in Houston, where they discussed Woodside’s operations in TT as well as the Calypso project.

The billion-dollar Dragon deal could result in an estimated 150 mscf/day in production between Venezuela and TT. The deal however went cold in 2018 after Venezuela was slapped with heavy sanctions by the US.

In January, the Dragon deal was revived when an exemption of sanctions was granted by the US. The exemptions came with clauses which restricted TT from paying money to Venezuela and limited the exemption to two years instead of the ten-year exemption requested by the TT Government.