The newly-installed government of Grenada wants speedy agreement on lingering joint marine resources issues with T&T in order to facilitate exploration of energy resources along the countries’ adjoining borders. In an interview with T&T Guardian, economic adviser to the government of Grenada, Dr Patrick Antoine, said the Keith Mitchell administration plans to “immediately push for the finalisation of the framework agreement on oil and gas” between the two countries.
“We also want to push for the development of the joint overlapping region…which is Block 21 which straddles the median between Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago,” Dr Antoine said. Mitchell’s New National Party (NNP) had been critical of a 2009 maritime delimitation treaty which defined the countries’ respective exclusive economic zones. The agreement was signed by former prime ministers Patrick Manning and Tillman Thomas.
Thomas’s National Democratic Congress (NDC) was routed at February 19 national elections by a margin of 15-0. Speaking at the opening of last week’s special energy meeting of Caricom’s Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED), Energy Minister, Kevin Ramnarine agreed there can be joint energy exploration between the two countries with particular reference to Block 21 off T&T’s north coast.
“If that becomes a reality,” the minister said, “it would be a historic event in the move towards economic cooperation.” Last September, T&T and Grenada signed a Memorandum of Cooperation which, Ramnarine at that time explained, calls on the two countries to “work towards the determination of the existence and the extent of hydrocarbon reservoirs in the area adjacent to the delimitation line including cross-border reservoirs.”
Dr Antoine says the new NNP administration plans to take the agreement several steps forward as speedily as possible.
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