Trinidad and Tobago will turn to Canada for help developing its oil and gas industry, a government official has stated.

Presently, the Caribbean country is working towards its plan of becoming a developed nation by the year 2020, with its oil and gas resources seen as a key means of achieving this.

While Trinidad and Tobago is already the leading exporter of natural gas to the eastern seaboard of the United States, in addition to the world's leading exporter of ammonia and ethanol, the country's new ambassador to Canada, Camille Robinson Regis, has explained that the industry needs further development, and this can only be achieved with outside help.

Specifically, she has revealed that she is aiming to establish strong links with Alberta's oil industry and learn from its programme of extracting oil from tarsands, a practice which could be of use for the islands' large asphalt deposits.

"We feel we might be able to benefit from the technology, and while I'm here, I'm going to make every effort to see if that can in fact take place," she explained.

"We've decided that we will be using the profits from oil and gas to feed into other areas so that we develop the country and that development is not totally oil and gas based."

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