Insanally awaiting information from Venezuela on boundaries of hydrocarbon exploration concessions
Stabroek News
December 15, 2002
Foreign Affairs Minister, Rudy Insanally is awaiting information from his Venezuelan counterpart Roy Chaderton on the location of the hydrocarbon concessions around Plataforma Deltana in the Orinoco Delta region. Venezuela’s President, Hugo Chavez has signed exploration agreements for natural gas with a number of multinational oil companies.
Insanally said that he had requested the information when he visited Venezuela at Chaderton’s invitation earlier this year.
From other sources, Stabroek News understands that information about the extent of the area and how the blocks might relate to our maritime waters is very hard to come by, as is the location of two wells sunk by the Venezuelan state-owned oil company, PdVSA. Insanally in an interview with the Stabroek News earlier this year said that Guyana was contemplating how to respond to the announcement given its concern that the area in question should in no way fall within Guyana’s maritime borders.
Trinidad recently signed an agreement with Venezuela relating to the exploitation of a block on the Venezuelan side of their common border in the north of the Gulf of Paria.
The PNCR at a press conference last month claimed that part of the Plataforma Deltana fell within Guyana’s continental shelf and accused the government of inaction in protecting “these oil and gas fields within our maritime boundaries.” Insanally also dismissed another claim by the PNCR at the same press conference that the officer who was acting as Guyana’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations had left the Foreign Service. He says that the officer is on a year’s secondment to the United Nations.
