Venezuela awards gas licence to Trinidad’s NGC, BP

PORT OF SPAIN, July 24, 2024 – The government of Venezuela has awarded a licence for an offshore gas development to the National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited (NGC) and BP, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

The licence will allow NGC and BP to develop the Venezuelan side of the Cocuina-Manakin field, which straddles the Trinidadian-Venezuelan maritime border.

The field holds natural gas reserves of around 28.3 bcm (1 tcf).

Negotiations over the licence, which involved Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA and Trinidadian Minister of Energy Stuart Young, were accelerated ahead of Venezuela’s July 28 presidential elections, Reuters reported on Monday.

Minister Young took to Facebook to celebrate the deal:

“This achievement is unprecedented and has never been done in Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela before for a cross-border hydrocarbon field. NGC and BP will jointly operate this field,” he said.

In May, the Trinidadian government secured a licence from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control to develop the field.

Co-operation with Venezuela on gas developments is a pillar of Trinidad and Tobago’s policy to address gas shortages that have hampered industry in the country for years. The shortages have affected the petrochemicals sector in particular, as well as forcing the flagship 15-million-tpy Atlantic LNG plan to idle one of its four trains since 2020.

Photo of Minister Young, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and Venezuelan Minister of Oil Pedro Rafael Tellechea courtesy of Stuart Young on Facebook.

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