T&T-Venezuela relations warm — but who gets the gas money?

Trinidad and Tobago’s Finance Minister Davendranath Tancoo said on September 3, 2026 that the government intends to negotiate fiscal terms for cross-border natural gas arrangements with Venezuela — covering fields including Dragon and Manakin-Cocuina — warning that existing government-to-government agreements left a ‘serious gap’ by failing to establish any specific revenue framework for hydrocarbons entering the country.

The fiscal gap sits at the centre of a broader diplomatic and commercial reset between Port of Spain and Caracas that took shape over a single week.

• Tancoo told Parliament that possible revenue mechanisms could include fixed import fees, commodity charges based on volume, unit transit fees based on distance, reserved-volume or consumed-volume fees, or other instruments — but stressed these remain examples of possible arrangements, not confirmed policy.
• The government is negotiating with ‘substantial multinationals’ on oil and gas developments, with talks still at the negotiation and discussion stage; Opposition MP Stuart Young asked specifically whether BP and Shell — currently in separate talks with Caracas over Dragon and Manakin-Cocuina — had been consulted on fiscal terms.
• Foreign and Caricom Affairs Minister Sean Sobers visited Caracas on September 3, 2026, meeting Venezuelan counterpart Félix Plasencia at Casa Amarilla; the delegation also delivered three tonnes of medical supplies for earthquake victims.
• Both governments issued a joint statement describing the visit as the start of a ‘new chapter’ and agreed a work agenda — covering energy, trade, agriculture, security, environment and culture — to be led by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez.
• BP agreed to sell a 20% stake in the Trinidad-side portion of the Manakin-Cocuina gas field to the National Gas Company (NGC).
• Caribbean Airlines announced it is in the final stages of planning to resume commercial flights to Simón Bolívar International Airport in Caracas, one year after suspending the weekly service on September 4, 2025.

The absence of a fiscal framework means T&T has been hosting cross-border energy conversations without locking in how the country gets paid. 

Closing that gap before Dragon or Manakin-Cocuina reach first-gas will determine whether T&T earns genuine upstream-equivalent revenue or is left with narrower processing and transit fees while multinationals capture LNG upside.

NGC’s precise commercial role — equity participant, gas buyer, transporter, or tolling counterparty — remains publicly unresolved. 

According to analysis published by the Lloyd Best Institute of the Caribbean, if NGC holds no direct entitlement to gas or LNG value from Dragon, T&T may host the processing but see the cargo revenues flow entirely to the companies that own and market the product.

Simultaneously, the August 2026 US-Venezuela oil agreement has shifted Caracas’s near-term energy priorities toward crude production, potentially pushing cross-border gas timelines further out and intensifying competition for Venezuelan feedstock between T&T’s Pointe-a-Pierre refinery and US-based facilities.

What to watch: • Whether the Persad-Bissessar/Rodríguez-led work agenda produces defined fiscal terms for Dragon and Manakin-Cocuina before any final investment decision is taken by Shell or BP. • NGC’s formally disclosed commercial role in the Dragon project structure — equity, offtake, tolling or none — which will determine T&T’s actual share of LNG revenue. • Whether the US-Venezuela oil-focused agreement delays or disrupts the OFAC licence framework underpinning cross-border gas talks, and how quickly Caribbean Airlines’ Caracas resumption signals normalised bilateral access.