Venezuela has suspended energy-development cooperation with Trinidad and Tobago, including joint natural gas projects in the works, Venezuela's illegitimate President Nicolas Maduro said on Monday.
Maduro said in a TV broadcast that the oil ministry and state-run oil producer PDVSA's board sent a proposal to suspend a cooperation agreement with Trinidad to his desk.
"I have approved the measure," Maduro said.
His order immediately suspended all aspects of the energy agreement with Trinidad and Tobago, he said, and congress and the supreme court will be asked to weigh in with additional recommendations.
That would likely mean Venezuela would revoke the license to develop the massive Dragon natural gas field, among other projects.
Maduro criticised what he described as the pro-US stance of Trinidad Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who took office on May 1.
Her government has had a close relationship with the administration of US President Donald Trump, while tensions between Washington and Caracas have escalated.
Maduro, who has claimed the US wants to drive him from power, said Persad-Bissessar threatened, "to turn Trinidad and Tobago into the US empire's aircraft carrier against Venezuela."
On Sunday, a US warship docked in Trinidad, two days after the US announced the deployment of an aircraft carrier group to Latin America.
As Trinidad faced declining gas reserves and production, former Trinidad prime minister Keith Rowley favored energy diplomacy with Venezuela and resisted US sanctions pressure.
Those efforts centered on the delayed Dragon natural gas field in Venezuelan waters near Trinidad. Its 4.2 trillion cubic feet of reserves could be a lifeline for Trinidad's energy-dependent economy.
Rowley lost an election this year to Persad-Bissessar.
Shell and the National Gas Company of Trinidad received a renewed US license earlier this month for the project.
Persad-Bissessar said her country did not need Venezuela's gas.
"We have our plans to grow our economy both within the energy and non-energy sectors," she told the Trinidad and Tobago Newsday newspaper.
Shell, NGC and BP, which are involved in various projects that include Venezuela, did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
Shell is separately developing the Manatee gas project, which crosses the maritime border into Venezuela but has received permission from the Maduro government to be developed on the Trinidad side independently.
It was not immediately clear if that project could also be at risk.
(Reporting by Vivian Sequera and Deisy Buitrago in Caracas, and Curtis Williams in Houston; Writing by Marianna Parraga; Editing by Jan Harvey, Bill Berkrot and Cynthia Osterman)
