Latest update October 20th, 2026 11:34 AM
T&T seeks oil deal with Guyana
…also eyes providing technical service support to energy industry
Kaieteur News- Energy Minister Dr Roodal Moonilal has written to Guyana’s Minister of Natural Resources Vickram Bharrat expressing the desire to collaborate on energy matters.
Moonilal disclosed this to members of the media in Trinidad and Tobago on Tuesday following a tour of The University of the West Indies (UWI) Penal-Debe South Campus, the Trinidad Express reported. He was responding to statements by Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo that Guyana did not have sufficient gas production to export. Moonilal said while he did not have one-on-one discussions with either Guyana’s president Irfaan Ali or Jagdeo, he was expecting a response from the natural resources minister of Guyana.
Energy Minister of T&T, Dr Roodal Moonilal
He said initiatives were also being undertaken for collaboration in Suriname and Grenada. However, he said with an election approaching in Suriname, it was “prudent to wait a few days more before making that type of initiative”. Moonilal said that Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar had outlined a vision for Trinidad and Tobago to become “an energy hub of the Caribbean and re-emerging as a major—and the leading—energy player in the Caribbean”.
He said this country’s interaction with Guyana would extend beyond gas. “Our business with Guyana and our interest with Guyana is not just gas. They are not as advanced with the production of gas, as they are with oil. So, our business with Guyana has to do with providing technical service support to…the energy industry there. Several of our State companies are involved in Guyana at this time and involved in bidding for contracts of providing services…technical, administrative (services), in some cases,” he said.
Asked if he was disappointed, Moonilal said: “No, they don’t have the production of gas at this time that will help us. That is why we’ve had discussions over the years, and we will now intensify those discussions…as well in Suriname, because there is an ongoing interest in a pipeline from Suriname to Trinidad, that can also connect to Guyana, if and when Guyana produces the quantum of gas that will be for both their domestic consumption and for export in the region, primarily Trinidad and Tobago.” He said the ministry would also have discussions with the Guyanese private sector.
Young wrong
Moonilal said that former energy minister Stuart Young was wrong, as there was a model to run pipelines outside of Venezuelan waters. “Throughout the world, pipelines are run through water, on land. It is quite common with international, commercial arrangements and international law to run a pipeline through other territorial waters belonging to several countries and on land; in fact, there are pipelines that run through Eastern Europe, Western Europe everywhere. That is a normal commercial and international negotiation process,” he added.
Natural Resources Minister of Guyana, Vickram Bharrat
Moonilal said that Trinidad and Tobago would be strongly represented at the gas symposium in June, where matters of the fuller participation of the energy sector from Trinidad in Suriname would be raised. “What I found startling when I became minister was that while the private sector has been able to position themselves and their own work to Guyana and Suriname, the government itself really didn’t have much of a footprint. Trinidad and Tobago government doesn’t have a footprint. It is really the private sector—and they have done so by their own work, their lobbying, their networking, their legal work, their commercial negotiations without the help of the government. And if we are to be the energy hub of the Caribbean, we must also have a significant presence as a government in those countries. And I’m happy to say that there are State enterprises now that we’re working with to get a bigger role in Suriname and Guyana in the coming months, to see some of the work we have tendered for,” he said.
He stated that unlike the previous administration, his negotiations would be much more transparent, much more open, and much more end-result focused. Addressing the matter of the Pointe-a-Pierre refinery, he said he was awaiting technical reports before holding a tour. “We are putting together a team to do a quick assessment—technical assessment—of the state of the refinery at this minute. We know what the refinery was in 2018, and certainly 2015. But we would like to get a technical report now on the mothballing process, and what is called tracking reports on the refinery. Then, we will be in a position to tour. It would make the tour much more useful when we have a status report from a technical committee. That should be set up any day now,” he said. (TRINIDAD EXPRESS)
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I remember when T & T was KING in the Caribbean with their OIL and GAS.
Now they have NONE remaining, they are begging Guyana to be involved
with ours. How, badly they have treated Guyanese landing at Piarco back
in their good old days, sitting in hot airplane waiting for connected flight to
arrive. We could not leave to enter the Terminal, or stand on the air steps
for fresh air, being ushered back to our seats….that was in the 1970’s.
Since then, I stopped using BWIA, now CA. My money is spent elsewhere, avoid stop over in T & T. Things must be really BAD, TOUGH THERE. Just
read India donated Basmati Rice, Cooking oil to them Trinis for Indian
arrival day. The Minister said, they could not grow anything much because
I think, they did not try hard enough but, depended on their OIL/GAS.