Page 9 - NorthAmOil Week 45 2022

NorthAmOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES NorthAmOil

US reportedly discussing Trinidad

and Tobago’s plan to use Venezuelan

gas for Atlantic LNG

AMERICAS THE US government has reportedly agreed Officials in Port of Spain have indicated that
to discuss Trinidad and Tobago’s request for a they hope gas from the Dragon field could be
waiver from the sanctions laws that discourage used to restart production at Atlantic LNG’s
investment in Venezuela’s oil sector in order to Train 1. This 3mn tonne per year (tpy) facility
facilitate the search for new sources of feedstock has been idle since 2020.
for the Atlantic LNG plant. The administration of US President Joe The
Port of Spain has asked Washington several Biden has expressed some interest in Trinidad
times to authorise talks with Caracas on access to and Tobago’s proposal in light of the current administration
natural gas fields in the southern Caribbean Sea, energy crisis in Europe, which is a major market
but its requests have generally gone unanswered. for output from Atlantic LNG, Reuters said. It of US President
However, four sources close to the matter told also quoted one of its sources as saying, though,
Reuters last week that US officials had begun that the Biden team had voiced some reserva- Joe Biden has
meeting with their counterparts from Trinidad tions about the Dragon plan because of the time expressed
and Tobago to discuss the latter’s proposal for needed to bring the gas field on stream.
development of Dragon, a gas field located off- “They don’t see Trinidad’s solution as being some interest
shore Venezuela. sufficiently immediate for Europe,” the source
As of press time, the news agency’s report explained. in Trinidad
could not be confirmed. Launching production at Dragon would
PdVSA, the national oil company (NOC) of take several years, even though some work and Tobago’s
Venezuela, has found about 4.2 trillion cubic feet has already been done at the field, Reuters proposal.
(118.9bn cubic metres) of gas at Dragon and was added. PdVSA and Port of Spain would have
hoping to team up with Trinidad and Tobago to to carry out extensive subsea inspections and
develop the field about 10 years ago. Venezuela’s engineering work in order to check wellhead
government shares that hope and gave Port of integrity, and they would not be able to use the
Spain a green light to start development in 2020. 17-km line built to pump gas from the field
The project fizzled, though, due to sanctions, since the pipes laid for that purpose are now
a lack of capital and failure to secure outside being utilised by Shell for production from the
investors. Colibri field.™

Week 45 10•November•2022 www. NEWSBASE .com P9