Although the terms of last week’s memorandum of understanding (MoU) on energy cooperation between Guyana and Jamaica haven’t been disclosed, the development is likely to put back on the agenda the question of how hydrocarbons-endowed CARICOM members should price the energy resource to their regional partners.

That issue was especially hot in the early 2000s when Jamaica, seeking to modernise power generation and lower energy costs, attempted to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Trinidad and Tobago. At the time, Kingston argued that it would be entitled to similar terms, except for shipping costs, to which Port-of-Spain supplied the product on its domestic market.

An advisory opinion by CARICOM’s then general counsel, Winston Anderson, essentially, agreed with Jamaica’s contention. CARICOM’s transformation to a single market and economy, and the specific language of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, Mr Anderson suggested, barred a member from treating other community nationals “less favourably than it does its own”. Mr Anderson is now the president of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), which, in its original jurisdiction, is the arbiter of the CARICOM treaty.