T&T, Suriname energy chambers sign MoU

The En­er­gy Cham­ber of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Suri­name En­er­gy Cham­ber signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MOU) at the Suri­name En­er­gy, Oil and Gas Sum­mit (SEOGS) 2026.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port on the Cham­ber’s web­site yes­ter­day, the agree­ment was signed by Dr Priya Mara­jh, in­ter­im ex­ec­u­tive of the En­er­gy Cham­ber of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and Or­lan­do Olm­berg, pres­i­dent of the Suri­name En­er­gy Cham­ber, on day one of the sum­mit.

Dr Mara­jh said, “The de­vel­op­ment of en­er­gy re­sources in the south­ern Caribbean re­quires a strong pri­vate sec­tor to en­sure that lo­cal busi­ness­es can par­tic­i­pate in the sup­ply chain and re­tain val­ue with­in the econ­o­my. This MOU with the Suri­name En­er­gy Cham­ber fos­ters the growth of pri­vate-sec­tor firms in both coun­tries and pro­motes the lo­cal con­tent par­tic­i­pa­tion of our peo­ple and busi­ness­es. We be­lieve that through co­op­er­a­tion, we can en­cour­age stronger in­vest­ment in­flows and cre­ate an en­vi­ron­ment where the pri­vate sec­tor can cap­i­talise on the op­por­tu­ni­ties rapid­ly un­fold­ing in our re­gion.”

Patrick Brun­ings, Suri­name’s Min­is­ter of Oil, Gas, and En­vi­ron­ment, and board mem­bers of the Suri­name En­er­gy Cham­ber, Clyde Grif­fith and Ja­nine Jad­nanans­ing, were present to wit­ness the sign­ing. The En­er­gy Cham­ber said sign­ing rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward in pri­vate-sec­tor col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the two na­tions.

The cham­ber ex­plained, “Un­der the MOU, the two par­ties have agreed to co­op­er­ate on: In­sti­tu­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion and en­er­gy-sec­tor de­vel­op­ment. Knowl­edge trans­fer, in­sti­tu­tion­al strength­en­ing, and lo­cal-con­tent ca­pac­i­ty build­ing. The de­vel­op­ment of re­gion­al poli­cies, in­vest­ment pro­mo­tion, and re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion. Joint ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing events, re­search pa­pers, and con­sul­ta­tions.”

This MOU is the sec­ond such signed by the En­er­gy Cham­ber in re­cent months. In May, a sim­i­lar agree­ment was signed with the George­town Cham­ber of Com­merce and In­dus­try (GC­CI). The En­er­gy Cham­ber said that re­gion­al pri­vate-sec­tor col­lab­o­ra­tion is vi­tal for the con­tin­ued de­vel­op­ment of the Caribbean’s en­er­gy re­sources.

The cham­ber said these re­gion­al part­ner­ships will go a long way to­ward en­sur­ing that Cham­ber mem­bers can work col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly with the pri­vate sec­tor in two of the world’s most promis­ing en­er­gy ju­ris­dic­tions, while al­so cre­at­ing new av­enues to strength­en firms across the re­gion.

The SEOGS 2026 be­gan yes­ter­day and will run un­til Fri­day, June 26.