With the political progress taking place between the Government and Opposition in Venezuela, the United States has lifted almost all of the sanctions on the Venezuela oil and gas industry for the next six months, with an expectation that this will be extended once political progress continues to be made towards free democratic elections in 2024. This comes on the back of the announcement of the extension of the waiver on the Dragon field gas project through to October 2025 and the removal of restrictions on the types of payments that Trinidad & Tobago could make for any gas received.
While a lot of the international media interest is in the Venezuela oil industry, for Trinidad & Tobago the removal of sanctions are especially relevant for the gas industry and the ambitions to import natural gas by pipeline from Venezuela.
The general relaxation of sanctions for the next six months represents a major new opportunity which will allow T&T and international companies to explore additional projects in Venezuela to bring gas to Trinidad in addition to the Dragon field.
These possible projects include the development of cross border fields such as Loran-Manatee and Manakin – Cocuina and the ability to bring gas from those fields into the existing Trinidad & Tobago gas network. The development of the Manatee field on the Trinidad side of the maritime boundary is already progressing through the investment cycle, with a final investment decision expected in 2024.
There are also potential projects based on the collection of natural gas that is currently being flared or vented on Venezuela’s onshore oilfields, for transmission by pipeline to Trinidad. This project has the additional benefit of helping to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and has attracted the interest of the European Union, who have expressed an interest in financial support for the project.
Beyond these projects already being actively discussed, there are huge gas resources offshore Venezuela in multiple large gas fields, especially in the Platiforma Deltana area off Trinidad’s southeast coast. In the longer-term these are all potential sources of natural gas that could be exported to Trinidad for processing into petrochemicals or re-exported as LNG to regional or international markets. Processing these Venezuelan gas resources through Trinidad’s existing well-developed infrastructure could represent a significant new economic opportunity for the country.