Trinidad and Tobago has brokered an agreement by neighbors and fellow oil producers Guyana and Venezuela for their foreign ministers to resolve a dispute over Caracas' detention of two Guyanese fishing vessels, Trinidad's foreign minister Amery Browne said.
The 21 January seizure of the small boats is the latest flare-up in a protracted dispute over a resource-rich border region, part of which overlaps deepwater acreage where ExxonMobil is developing a giant oil field under a license issued by Guyana.
The Washington-based Organization of American States (OAS) today backed Guyana's claims that the vessels were in Guyanese waters when they were intercepted by Venezuela's navy, and called for the release of the boats and the 11 crew members that were taken to the eastern Venezuelan port of Guiria.
Venezuela's foreign ministry said it has presented to its Guyanese counterpart "evidence and location coordinates which show that the vessels were carrying out illegal fishing activities in jurisdictional waters of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela."
Venezuela's ambassador to Trinidad "gave an undertaking that his minister of foreign affairs will meet virtually with his Guyanese counterpart as soon as possible in an attempt to swiftly resolve the issue," Trinidad's foreign ministry said. No date for the meeting was determined.
Trinidad may be well-placed to mediate the dispute. Mindful of potential commercial synergies with gas-rich Venezuela, Trinidad has long shied away from choosing sides in Venezuela's internal political conflict pitting President Nicolas Maduro against the US-supported political opposition. The US has also thrown its support behind Georgetown, illustrated by recent joint coast guard patrols.
ExxonMobil is currently producing 120,000 b/d of crude from the deepwater Stabroek block, part of which lies in the disputed border territory known as the Essequibo. The US major forecasts 750,000 b/d of production in 2026, nearly double the volume that Venezuela's enfeebled national oil industry is currently producing.
Last month, The Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) agreed to arbitrate Guyana's request for validation of its border with Venezuela, after which Maduro vowed to "reconquer" the Essequibo province. The territory makes up two thirds of Guyana.
Caracas maintains that the ICJ has no jurisdiction over the matter.
The Essequibo claim is a rare issue on which all sides in Venezuela's conflict concur, but Maduro's opponents blame him for giving up on the territorial claim.
