VENEZUELAN Petroleum Minister Tareck El Aissami has resigned.

A Reuters report said Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro accepted El Aissami's resignation after the detention of at least six high-level officials amid a corruption probe that focused on state-energy company PDVSA and the judiciary.

El Aissami said he will resign to fully support the investigations.

Reuters said the arrests of PDVSA officials were linked to an investigation into oil cargoes leaving Venezuela without due payment to the company. This has reportedly led to other executives being suspended from their posts.

There was no indication whether or not this development would affect ongoing talks with Trinidad and Tobago about developing the Dragon gas field, which is in Venezuela's maritime space.

In January, the Dragon deal was revived when the US granted an exemption from sanctions. The exemptions came with clauses which restricted TT from paying money to Venezuela, and were limited to two years rather than the ten that the TT Government asked for.

On March 14, Energy Minister Stuart Young signed a non-disclosure agreement with PDVSA over the project, in Caracas, Venezuela.

In a statement, Young said the agreement governs the negotiations between the parties and the exchange of information as they progressed the technical and commercial aspects of the planned development.

The Dragon deal, if successful, will give TT access to the field, said to hold about 4.2 tscf (trillion standard cubic feet) of natural gas. The project will be able to feed an estimated 150 mscf/day (million standard cubic feet per day) to TT.

The Dragon deal stalled in 2018 after Venezuela was hit hard with sanctions, disallowing other countries from doing deals with it. After lobbying the US, TT was granted an exemption from the sanctions on Venezuela..

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