BP Confirms Venezuelan Gas Pipeline to Trinidad's Atlantic LNG, Skipping In-Country Liquefaction Build
BP will pipe Venezuelan gas to its 45% stake in Atlantic LNG in Trinidad, a route that sidesteps a costly Venezuelan infrastructure build and draws NGC into the upstream supply chain.
BP confirmed on 2026-08-17 that it will pipe gas extracted from Venezuelan fields directly to Trinidad, feeding the volumes through the Atlantic LNG export terminal rather than constructing any new liquefaction facilities on Venezuelan soil. BP holds a 45% stake in Atlantic LNG. The processed cargoes would then ship to global markets.4
The approach avoids what would be an expensive and politically fraught infrastructure buildout inside Venezuela. Trinidad's liquefaction capacity is already operational. Routing Venezuelan gas there over a cross-border pipeline means BP can attempt to monetise reservoirs straddling one of the region's most difficult investment environments without relying on Venezuelan permitting and construction timelines.4
The gas in question lies primarily in the Loran Phase 2 block, which spans the Venezuela-Trinidad maritime border. Loran Phase 2 holds an estimated 4 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas on the Venezuelan side, while the Trinidadian extension — the Manatee/Manakin fields — is estimated to contain up to 10 Tcf, oilprice.com reported on 2026-08-17. Those figures have not been independently audited in the available source material and carry the caveats typical of early-stage cross-border resource assessments.4
BP spent the two weeks before 2026-08-17 reinforcing its position on both sides of that border. On 2026-08-06, the company agreed to acquire Woodside Energy Group's 70% operating stake in the Calypso deepwater gas field offshore Trinidad and Tobago, making BP the sole owner of what Rigzone described as an early-stage asset.2
Four days later, on 2026-08-10, BP announced it was transferring a 20% stake in a separate cross-border gas field to Trinidad's National Gas Co (NGC), which itself holds a stake in the Atlantic LNG export terminal, Energy Voice reported.3
That transfer has significance for the project's political architecture. NGC is now a partner in the upstream supply chain that feeds a terminal it already co-owns. Its interests are aligned with moving cross-border molecules to Trinidad rather than leaving them stranded on a Venezuelan wellhead.3
Venezuela's fiscal terms have historically made those incentives difficult to act on. Companies operating there face a 30% royalty on gross revenue collected before any cost recovery, a 50% corporate income tax on net profit, and an alternative minimum tax structured so the government captures 50% of total gross extracted value before operating expenses are counted, oilprice.com reported on 2026-08-17. That stacked structure compresses project economics significantly compared with comparable basins in Brazil, Guyana, or Colombia.4
Acting president Delcy Rodríguez's 2026 Hydrocarbon Law Reform sought to replace those overlapping levies with a single simplified framework. No commercial deal has yet tested whether that reform materially changes the effective burden for cross-border gas projects, where production occurs in Venezuela but revenue is captured through Trinidadian liquefaction and export.4
BP is not alone in advancing this corridor. Repsol and Italy's Eni finalised a joint strategic arrangement with Venezuela's Ministry of Hydrocarbons covering a major gas development at the jointly operated Cardón IV field, oilprice.com reported on 2026-08-17. Two separate international consortia are now advancing Venezuelan gas through existing Caribbean export infrastructure simultaneously.4
That convergence extends a pattern identified in June 2026: Venezuela was shifting from individual project approvals toward a broader regional gas export corridor, using Trinidad's liquefaction capacity rather than building independently, with Shell also holding positions on both sides of the maritime boundary, oilprice.com reported at that time.1
For Atlantic LNG, the sequence — sole ownership of Calypso, NGC as a cross-border upstream partner, and now a confirmed Venezuelan pipeline route — amounts to a feedgas consolidation strategy for a terminal whose existing Trinidadian supply base is maturing. The pace at which the estimated cross-border reserves become exportable cargoes depends on BP's ability to navigate Venezuela's fiscal regime, and no deal struck under the 2026 reform has yet closed to establish what that structure actually delivers in practice.4,3,2