Trinidad to ease burden at the gas pump
A TRINIDAD and Tobago deal to ease the financial pain felt by its CARICOM neighbours because of skyrocketing oil prices is in the works.
With oil being traded on the world market at a five-week high of US$40.30 a barrel, Ken Valley, Trinidad and Tobago's Minister of Trade and Industry, said in New York that his country was planning to place a US$30 a barrel ceiling on the price to Caribbean neighbours, with any excess being converted into a long-term loan at low interest rates.
"Yes, there is a move afoot, either in place already or it would be in place shortly with respect to oil prices," he said in New York. "That's the initiative of Trinidad and Tobago in conjunction, I think, with the Venezuelans. More importantly, over the longer term, the intention is to build a natural gas pipeline through the islands, going as far as Guadeloupe so as to provide the critical infrastructure to allow for the attraction of industry to some of these islands," Valley said.
PRICES RISE TO HIGHEST POINT
A few days ago oil prices rose to the highest point in more than a month when they went over the US$40 mark. Crude oil to be delivered in August rose by US$1.22 or 3.1 per cent to reach US$40.30 a barrel at the close of the trading day on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices were 33 per cent higher than a year ago but down from a record high of US$42.45 a barrel on June 2.
The rising oil prices have forced some Caribbean countries to increase the cost of a gallon of gasoline at the pump. At the same time, economists and officials of Ministries of Finance in CARICOM have warned that oil prices could dampen the pace of economic growth. Analysts at Standard & Poor's, the major Wall Street credit rating firm, have also raised questions about CARICOM's economic prospects this year, citing the high-energy prices and warning they could serve as a drag on the economies of the region.
Valley, who was in New York to address Trinidadians and United States business executives about investment prospects in the twin-island republic, denied charges made in Barbados, Jamaica and elsewhere that his country was selling oil to its Caribbean neighbours at a higher price than at what was exported to the United States. "It simply wasn't true," Valley said. Valley also rejected a Jamaica suggestion that it had a right to 'national treatment' on oil under the CARICOM integration arrangement. "Trinidad and Tobago resisted that argument conceptually two years but we weren't in disagreement with the principle of providing energy at a favourable price to CARICOM countries," he said. "But we were in disagreement that you can claim national treatment for our oil and gas. What we were saying is that the concept of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) is that gas in Trinidad and Tobago belong to all of us.
"We will give them a price better than you know that the United States gets," he explained. "But to say that you have a legitimate claim to get the same price as (Trinidad and Tobago Electricity) we say that's going too far. Trinidad's position is that it may very well be a case for the Caribbean Court of Justice. My hope is that we would come to some amicable arrangement."
Taken from the Barbados Nation website
