Trinidad plans pipeline extensions

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago, June 16 (UPI) -- Trinidad plans to expand a pipeline to Barbados amid plans to move forward with $155 million in investments for pipeline development with its island of Tobago.

The government said it is waiting on word from the Barbados government to extend pipelines there while it moves ahead with its own plans to develop a pipeline between the two islands by 2011, the online Oil and Gas Journal reports.

Barbados, for its part, announced in 2007 open bidding on 26 offshore oil and gas blocks as it hopes to develop its national hydrocarbon potential.

Barbados produces only 1,100 barrels per day from domestic production of onshore wells. The national oil company sells its crude to Trinidad and Tobago for refinement, which Barbados then buys back.

The government in Barbados says it hopes to invite international bidders to develop its resources as 15 percent of the fuel requirements are produced domestically.

For its part, Venezuela in 2008 raised concerns that oil and gas developments in Barbados would interfere with its own developments in the Caribbean continental shelf.

Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago are not party to the Petrocaribe Caribbean oil alliance with Venezuela.