(Reuters) – British oil major BP BP.L and Trinidad and Tobago’s state energy firm NGC have received a two-year licence from the U.S. Treasury Department to negotiate and develop the Cocuina-Manakin gas fields with Venezuela, Trinidad’s energy minister said today.
Washington last month did not renew a broad license that had allowed Venezuela to freely export its oil and receive investment, but it has since issued individual authorizations to companies trying to do business in the South American country.
BP and NGC will be allowed to plan an ambitious project involving an offshore gas reservoir that extends from Venezuela to Trinidad in the Caribbean Sea, minister Stuart Young said in a Port of Spain media briefing.
The authorization is the second issued by the U.S. for energy projects between the two countries, following a license in early 2023 to Shell SHEL.L and NGC for development of the Dragon gas field in Venezuela. That project would export gas to Trinidad under a licence recently extended through October 2025.
“It’s the same terms as Dragon, where we can pay in U.S. currency,” Young said, referring to the license, which would allow customers to pay for the gas in hard currency as an exemption to U.S. sanctions on Venezuela.
A spokesperson for BP had said earlier this month that the company had suspended negotiations for Cocuina-Manakin, which on Venezuela’s side belongs to the Plataforma Deltana project, until receiving a new U.S. authorization.
