The whol­ly state-owned Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny­of T&T (NGC) will con­tin­ue to pro­ceed with the Drag­on gas deal, while mon­i­tor­ing the geopo­lit­i­cal con­di­tions.

NGC chair­man Joseph Ish­mael Khan said his team will con­tin­ue to be keep a pos­i­tive out­look con­cern­ing the deal de­spite Don­ald Trump's vic­to­ry in the re­cent Unit­ed States pres­i­den­tial elec­tion.

Trump's vic­to­ry has prompt­ed spec­u­la­tion con­cern­ing the deal, with some in­clud­ing for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter, Kevin Ram­nar­ine, ex­press­ing con­cern that the poli­cies of the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion could im­pact the do­mes­tic en­er­gy sec­tor. Ram­nar­ine said T&T may no longer ben­e­fit from the Biden Ad­min­is­tra­tion's pause on liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas ex­port ap­provals.

When asked about the po­ten­tial im­pact on op­er­a­tions, Dr Khan said, "We are con­tin­u­ing to look at the sit­u­a­tion. We do have the OFAC li­cence. Work is be­ing done as we speak and we con­tin­ue to be pos­i­tive."

On Jan­u­ary 24, 2023, the US De­part­ment of the Trea­sury’s Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol’s (OFAC) is­sued a spe­cif­ic li­cense to T&T to de­vel­op the Drag­on gas field lo­cat­ed in Venezue­lan ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters, near to Trinidad's north-west tip. That gas field is be­ing de­vel­oped by NGC and the Eu­ro­pean multi­na­tion­al en­er­gy gi­ant, Shell.

T&T re­ceived an­oth­er spe­cif­ic li­cence from OFAC to con­tin­ue the ex­plo­ration, pro­duc­tion, and ex­port of gas with the gov­ern­ment of Venezuela for the Cocuina-Man­akin nat­ur­al gas field on May 29, 2024.

Khan was a guest at the Arthur Lok Jack Glob­al School of Busi­ness Lead­er­ship Sum­mit 2024 which held the theme Bridg­ing Tra­di­tion with In­no­va­tion.

CEO of UWI Arthur Lok Jack Glob­al School of Busi­ness, Mar­i­ano Browne, said the event was cru­cial to ex­pand­ing the per­spec­tive of lo­cal busi­ness­es and in­tro­duc­ing and un­der­stand­ing that lo­cal en­ti­ties can be world class.

"We're putting this on to let peo­ple un­der­stand that there are busi­ness­es in Trinidad and To­ba­go that are think­ing about oth­er things. They are mov­ing they are tak­ing on a wider idea and not just think­ing about grow­ing in the con­text of Trinidad and To­ba­go but grow­ing out­side. It is im­por­tant that peo­ple un­der­stand and look at some of those ex­am­ples in terms of what is tak­ing place and what dri­ves those busi­ness­es," said Browne, who stressed that the pub­lic al­so need­ed to un­der­stand that suc­cess­ful lo­cal busi­ness was key to a good econ­o­my in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

"In the first in­stance, many peo­ple in Trinidad think that busi­ness­es are peo­ple who take ad­van­tage of them, not un­der­stand­ing that busi­ness is vi­tal to the sur­vival of Trinidad and To­ba­go. That's the first point. The sec­ond one is that peo­ple think prof­it is a bad word, but busi­ness­es can't sur­vive with­out prof­it. The third thing to un­der­stand is that busi­ness­es on­ly sur­vive with ded­i­cat­ed peo­ple. Most peo­ple think the busi­ness­es are tak­ing ad­van­tage of them, but busi­ness­es can­not sur­vive with­out peo­ple. In fact it is a sym­bi­ot­ic re­la­tion­ship," said Browne.