Latin America Advisor
Energy Advisor
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What Can a New Caribbean Energy Alliance Achieve?
Trinidad & Tobago proposed a Caribbean energy alliance with neighboring Guyana and Suriname. Shell subsidiary BG Group’s Dolphin Platform in Trinidad & Tobago is pictured. // File Photo: Trinidad & Tobago Government.
Trinidad & Tobago Energy Minister Stuart Young on Jan. 23 proposed a Caribbean energy alliance with neighboring Guyana and Suriname. The alliance could bring oil and gas resources from Guyana, Venezuela and Suriname to Trinidad for processing and export and aims to bolster energy security in the Caribbean. Trinidad’s negotiations with Venezuela will start soon, after the U.S. Treasury Department last month issued a two-year license to jointly develop an offshore gas field on the Venezuelan side of the border. What are the main ambitions and priorities of the alliance? What energy frameworks already exist in the Caribbean, and how would this one differ?
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Jan Mangal, energy consultant and former petroleum advisor to the president of Guyana: “The proposal implies the ‘energy’ alliance is an ‘oil & gas’ (O&G) alliance, but energy is not only O&G. Why are these Caribbean leaders looking backward to O&G, and not looking forward to renewable energy? Trinidad & Tobago (T&T) failed to benefit from its traditional oil industry, and it failed to benefit from its more recent gas (LNG) industry. So why would rekindling its O&G industry lead to anything but failure? There is, however, a role for Guyana in creating an alliance. Instead of giving billions of dollars to ExxonMobil, Guyana could pump billions into a regional fund focused on the Caribbean (akin to a Caribbean Sovereign Wealth Fund), and focused on helping the island states prepare for climate change, improving resiliency and…”
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About the Energy Advisor
A sister publication of the Inter-American Dialogue’s daily Latin America Advisor, the weekly Energy Advisor captures fresh analysis from business leaders and government officials on the most important developments in oil and gas, biofuels, the power sector, renewables, new technologies, and the policy debates shaping the future of energy in the Western Hemisphere and beyond. To subscribe or for more information, contact Erik Brand, publisher of the Advisor, at ebrand@thedialogue.org.
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