Page 6 - NorthAmOil Week 04 2023

NorthAmOil COMMENTARY NorthAmOil

US waives sanctions for

Dragon gas project

OFAC gives Trinidad and Tobago permission to work with

PdVSA, Shell at offshore gas field

AMERICAS VENEZUELAN government officials have now relieved, and all relevant parties can pro-
had many opportunities to familiarise them- gress the plans to result in natural gas from
WHAT: selves with the Office of Foreign Assets Con- Venezuela.”
Venezuela will be able to trol (OFAC), the division of the US Treasury
move some of its offshore Department that oversees sanctions imple- Details emerging
gas to market via Trinidad mentation, since Washington began restrict- Some sources have reported that state-owned
and Tobago. ing investment in the oil industry in early PdVSA will serve as operator of the project,
2019. Within the last year, though, OFAC has which targets a section of the maritime bound-
WHY: lifted some of the pressure. It gave a few Euro- ary line between Trinidad and Tobago and Ven-
Other countries in the pean firms permission to resume exports of ezuela. However, other observers have said that
region support the Venezuelan crude oil in the second quarter of Shell (UK), which signed an agreement with
project. 2022, for instance, and also authorised the US PdVSA and National Gas Co. of Trinidad and
major Chevron to restart some of its upstream Tobago Ltd (NGC) on Dragon and several other
WHAT NEXT: operations in the South American country last nearby fields in 2018, before the imposition of
The deal is contingent on November. sanctions, would take that role.
fuel supplies to Jamaica And this week, Washington has taken yet In any event, Rowley reported that Wash-
and the Dominican another step to lessen the weight of the sanc- ington had granted Port of Spain’s request for
Republic, where US tions imposed on Caracas. On January 24, Keith permission to work with PdVSA. Trinidad and
companies already have Rowley, the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago applied for the waiver in mid-2022 and
a presence in the gas Tobago, said at an industry conference in Port has been discussing the project with US officials,
market. of Spain that OFAC had agreed to let his country including President Joe Biden, ever since then,
move forward with plans to develop Dragon, an while also keeping channels of communica-
offshore natural gas field, jointly with Venezue- tion open with Venezuelan President Nicolas
la’s national oil company (NOC) PdVSA. Maduro, he said.
“The United States government has today Washington gave the deal the green light on
approved Trinidad and Tobago’s development the understanding that certain provisions of the
of the Dragon field via an OFAC waiver from sanctions regime would remain in force, Row-
sanctions, with specific terms to be finalised,” he ley noted. Trinidad and Tobago will only be able
declared. “What this means is that the restric- to proceed on the condition that no cash pay-
tions on the Dragon gas field development are ments are made to Maduro’s regime during the

P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 04 26•January•2023