Shifting sands of US, Venezuela relations cast cloud over Dragon gas project
Even as the latest round of sanctions imposed by the United States against Venezuela, seemingly over Washington’s doubts regarding the likely fairness of the country’s July general elections, the European Union does not appear – at least up to this time – prepared to set aside its support for the potentially highly valued Dragon Gas project between Caracas and Port of Spain. In the face of the US re-imposing sanctions on Venezuela’s energy sector this week, the European Union (EU) remains steadfast in its interest in, and potential support for the Dragon Gas pipeline between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago [T&T].
What is believed to be the Biden administration’s disposition to ‘green-lighting’ the project upon which the economies of both Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela appear heavily dependent, has now elicited responses from other countries in Europe which would appear to be supportive of the project going ahead, the prevailing rocky relationship between Washington and Caracas notwithstanding. The Trinidad Guardian of Wednesday April 17 quotes European Ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago, Peter Cavendish, as signaling the European Union’s reported “willingness” to support the project while Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Péter Szijjártó, has reportedly also endorsed the project, indicating that Budapest is willing to favour the undertaking, which involves the creation of a 90-kilometre pipeline between the two countries, when Budapest assumes the presidency of the EU in July this year.
A statement reportedly issued to the Guardian Media by Cavendish quotes the EU diplomat as saying that the European diplomatic grouping’s interest in the project is linked to its wider interest in diversifying its sources of energy, though he reportedly added that the EU, while prepared to look positively at any proposals that are brought to its attention, has no final position on the issue at this time.
Back in August 2018, an agreement had been reached between Trinidad and Tobago’s National Gas Company (NGC) and Venezuela’s state-owned oil and natural gas company, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A (PDVSA). The Agreement, however, became caught up in a cesspool of disapproval from Washington deriving from its disapproval of the posture of the Maduro administration towards what it regards as its lack of enthusiasm for democracy, and specifically, for free and fair elections. Since 2018, plans for an envisaged pipeline to facilitate the project had been put on hold. Amidst the political storm clouds that had begun to settle over the project, Port-of-Spain, driven by Dragon’s significance to the country’s economy had turned to another energy giant, Shell, to pursue the option of the Loran-Manatee gas field located on the maritime border between the two countries.
During a recent visit to Port of Spain, however, the EU diplomat had reportedly said that the European grouping had already decided to include two projects involving Trinidad and Tobago on its Global Gateway programme, the first being a 90 kilometre-long submarine pipeline and the second designed to make T&T’s petrochemical industry greener and more environmentally protected. The Guardian article on the issue states that while the latter initiative is mentioned on the European Commission’s Global Gateway Latin America and the Caribbean website, the pipeline project is reportedly absent.
Back in December last year, Port-of-Spain and Caracas appeared ready to produce gas from Venezuela’s Dragon field. Washington, however, would appear to have thrown a sizeable spanner into the ‘works’ by announcing earlier this month that it was returning to a posture of sanctions against the Maduro administration over what is described in The Guardian report as “concerns about general elections” in Venezuela. Specifically, Washington is reported to have indicated that there would be no renewal of a license that had been set to expire a few days ago and which had appeared to slacken the stranglehold that the US had imposed on the Venezuelan oil industry through sanctions.
According to The Guardian report, Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister, Dr. Keith Rowley, has gone on record as saying that, “if the United States does things to Venezuela or about Venezuela, we can’t guarantee that some of those things would not be detrimental to us, as in fact, it has already been,” a thinly veiled admission that the Dragon Gas project may still be far from a certainty for the two countries.