The Venezuelan government signed an exploration-production license for the Cocuina gas field in Caracas on July 24, 2024, jointly awarded to BP and the National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago (NGC), the Trinidadian state gas company. The license sets the permit split at 80% for BP and 20% for NGC. Cocuina forms the Venezuelan portion of a larger cross-border field, Manakin-Cocuina, whose Trinidadian side, Manakin, has been operated by BP since its discovery. The field straddles the maritime border between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago.

A split distinct from the resource-sharing arrangement

The 80%-20% split concerns only ownership of the Cocuina permit, not the sharing of gas resources discovered across the entire unitized field, which follows a different arrangement between the Trinidadian and Venezuelan sides. This distinction, a frequent source of confusion, stems from the unitization mechanism adopted by the two governments. Rather than developing two adjacent but jurisdictionally distinct fields separately, the parties opted for a joint development plan, with infrastructure connected on the Trinidadian side. Other gas investments are proceeding in parallel internationally, such as the Siemens Energy program to equip two 2.6 GW gas plants in Oman.

This joint development plan would allow Venezuelan gas to be monetized through the liquefied natural gas export capacity already in place in Trinidad and Tobago. Georgia Power, for its part, has broken ground on 1,500 MW of gas capacity at its Plant Bowen facility in the United States, illustrating the scale of gas investments underway on other continents. The shared-infrastructure logic remains what makes the Cocuina project strategic for both Caracas and Port of Spain, beyond the sole question of permit ownership.

A regulatory framework under US constraint

Development of the Cocuina field remains contingent on obtaining specific authorizations from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the Treasury Department agency responsible for enforcing economic sanctions on Venezuela. BP, a company subject to US law, cannot conduct activity related to Cocuina without a waiver license granted by the agency. An initial specific license allowed the parties to negotiate the agreement with Venezuelan authorities ahead of the July 2024 signing. The authorization regime has since undergone several changes, reflecting shifts in US sanctions policy toward Caracas.

The July 2024 license was signed while Nicolás Maduro held the Venezuelan presidency and Pedro Tellechea served as oil minister. Maduro has since been captured by US forces, and the interim presidency is now held by Delcy Rodríguez. She also held the post of minister of Petroleum and Hydrocarbons at the time a memorandum of understanding was signed in April 2026, before being replaced in that ministry by Paula Henao in March 2026. These successive changes at the head of state and the oil ministry add further uncertainty to the timeline for implementing the Cocuina project.

Governance tension on the Trinidadian side

In Trinidad and Tobago, NGC’s executive chairmanship was held on an interim basis by Edmund Subryan through 2025. Gerald Ramdeen was appointed chairman of the company’s board of directors on July 14, 2025, replacing Randy Ramadhar Singh, amid controversy over board governance. The Energy portfolio, held by Stuart Young at the time of the 2024 license signing, is now held by Roodal Moonilal, following a change of government. These personnel changes, combined with regional geopolitical tensions, create a shifting institutional environment for the advancement of the Cocuina project.