Energy Chamber, Amcham congratulate government on Dragon deal

Congratulations have begun to pour in from stakeholders to the Government as several chambers express pleasure at the signing of the Dragon Gas deal.

The Energy Chamber congratulated Government for delivering and tipped its hat to Minister of Energy Stuart Young for the work on the deal, five years in the making.

“(Young) has worked tirelessly to secure the agreement in a very challenging environment,” the Energy Chamber said in a release yesterday. “This marks an important milestone in the plans to import natural gas by pipeline from Venezuela to Trinidad and Tobago for onward processing and export to international markets as LNG and petrochemicals.”

The chamber said successful delivery of the deal will help provide energy, fertilisers and petrochemicals to assist with bolstering energy and food security for TT and the region.

The chamber’s six-point plan for securing new natural gas supplies released in 2022 suggested TT secure cross- and across-border supplies.

“The signing yesterday speaks directly to this and is a clear step in the right direction,” the release said.

The American Chamber of Commerce TT (Amcham) also recognised the Prime Minister and Young for their leadership in the deal.

“We appreciate that there are more steps required before operationalisation can take place. However, we are optimistic that this latest agreement has taken us one step closer toward this goal.”

Amcham said in its release it will continue providing its support.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced the signing of the Dragon gas deal in a tweet on Thursday. He called it a “message of peace, solidarity and shared sovereignty.”

“We already have the first oil reserve in the world, and we are recovering productive capacity and we are going to fully recover it with our efforts,” Maduro said in a publication released by the Venezuelan government. “Now we are operating investments at the highest level to advance in all gas blocks.”

He added that the signing of the agreement strengthens co-operation for the security and energy sovereignty of the region.

“Petrocaribe is coming back stronger now because it is with its own efforts, step by step, little by little.”

PetroCaribe was an energy initiative launched in 2005 by then-Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez to supply Venezuelan crude oil to  Caribbean countries at discounted prices.