CARICOM to Seek Changes in PetroCaribe Deal

Trinidad & Tobago´s Prime Minister Patrick Manning will lead an initiative to change the conditions of the oil supply agreement between Venezuela and Caribbean countries later this month.

A report in the local press indicate that Trinidad, Barbados and Jamaica will ask Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to reconsider some of the terms of the PetroCaribe agreement that the governments say run contrary to the spirit of the CARICOM treaty.

Prime Minister Patrick Manning of Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica´s Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, and Barbados Prime Minister Owen Arthur met in Barbados to discuss the PetroCaribe agreement and decided that the arrangements had to be reviewed.

Under the agreement, Caribbean countries are to receive crude oil and oil products at significantly reduced prices with the difference converted into a loan that can be paid out in cash or with other commodities, such as bananas and sugar. Arthur said Barbados did not sign the deal as it might have a negative impact on the country´s debt ratios.

If the deal went through in its current form, the region will get its supplies from Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) as opposed to Trinidad and Tobago´s state-owned company Petrotrin, thereby breaching the Caricom agreement, which states that items produced outside Caricom that are available in one of the islands should attract a common external tariff.