Trinidad National Security Minister meets Maduro

By Staff Editor On In Trinidad & Tobago News |
National Security Minister and Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister Stuart Young (right) meets with Venezuelan ministers and officials in Caracas, yesterday. Office of the Prime Minister photo
National Security Minister and Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister Stuart Young (right) meets with Venezuelan ministers and officials in Caracas, yesterday. Office of the Prime Minister photo

(Trinidad Guardian) Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Minister and Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Stu­art Young, yes­ter­day met with Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro in Cara­cas for dis­cus­sions on mat­ters of en­er­gy and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter con­firmed the vis­it via a me­dia state­ment yes­ter­day evening.

It said Young vis­it­ed Cara­cas, Venezuela dur­ing the day to dis­cuss mat­ters of in­ter­est to the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela and the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“Min­is­ter Young met with Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro, Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez, Min­is­ter for In­ter­nal Re­la­tions, Jus­tice and Peace, Nestor Reverol, Min­is­ter of En­er­gy, Manuel Queve­do, Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs, Jorge Ar­reaza and Vice Min­is­ter for the Caribbean/Am­bas­sador to Cari­com, Raúl Li­Causi,” the state­ment said.

Trinidad and To­ba­go has con­tin­ued to recog­nise Maduro as Venezuela’s pres­i­dent, de­spite many coun­tries, in­clud­ing the Unit­ed States, recog­nis­ing the head ofthe Na­tion­al As­sem­bly, Juan Guaidó in­stead.

Trinidad and To­ba­go have been in dis­cus­sions with Venezuela over the Drag­on Field be­tween the two coun­tries.

On Au­gust 27, 2018, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Maduro signed an agree­ment in Cara­cas that will al­low the is­land to ac­cess gas from the Drag­on Field.

Row­ley had told the me­dia then, “We may have been able to save our in­dus­try by get­ting a se­cure source of gas for the down­stream sec­tor. It may over time al­so al­low us to look at the ex­pan­sion of the down­stream sec­tor and in­vest­ments there, as long as we can show in­vestors we have a se­cured stream of gas.”

The Prime Min­is­ter was not will­ing at the time to dis­close the price of the gas, point­ing to com­mer­cial con­fi­den­tial­i­ty, but he re­vealed it will be 150 mil­li­on stan­dard cu­bic feet per day (mm­scf/d), with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of it in­creas­ing to 300 mm­scf/d.

The pipeline car­ry­ing the gas from Venezuela’s Drag­on Gas field in East­ern Venezuela to Shell’s Hi­bis­cus plat­form off the North Coast will be built and owned in a joint ven­ture be­tween the NGC and Shell Trinidad. The es­ti­mat­ed cost of the con­struc­tion of the pipeline is close to TT $1 bil­li­on.