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T&T has been grant­ed a six-month win­dow un­der a new­ly is­sued Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC) li­cence from the Unit­ed States Trea­sury De­part­ment, which will al­low Gov­ern­ment and the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) to for­mal­ly en­gage in ne­go­ti­a­tions with Venezuela on the de­vel­op­ment of the Drag­on gas project.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie made the an­nounce­ment at a me­dia con­fer­ence at his Port-of-Spain of­fice yes­ter­day, de­scrib­ing it as the re­sult of strate­gic diplo­ma­cy led by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Read­ing what the li­cence en­tails, Je­re­mie said it was “is­sued un­der cer­tain ex­ec­u­tive or­ders and it au­tho­ris­es US per­sons, in­clud­ing em­ploy­ees, af­fil­i­ates, con­trac­tors and ser­vice providers em­ployed by or act­ing on be­half of or for the di­rect or in­di­rect ben­e­fit of the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go Ltd, Shell, PLC, Fu­tu­ra Clara Lim­it­ed, and their sub­sidiaries and their af­fil­i­ates and con­trac­tors to en­gage in trans­ac­tions or­di­nar­i­ly in­ci­dent and nec­es­sary to ne­go­ti­a­tions with the gov­ern­ment of Venezuela and Petroleos, the Venezuela ex­ec­u­tives in con­nec­tion with the Drag­on gas project.”