Patrick Manning warned Caribbean countries they could be cutting their own throats.

Manning said the initiative would force private oil firms out, leaving the region dependent on a single state-run supplier.

He suggested that Trinidad and Tobago could stop selling its own oil to its neighbours if Petrocaribe went ahead in its current form.

He said he could not offer guarantees to countries attempting to resume buying oil from Trinidad if the Petrocaribe deal eventually failed.

"It is a question of cutting your own throat if you are not careful," Manning said.

Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados are the only countries in the Caribbean not to have signed any agreements under the accord, under which Venezuela will supply oil at preferential rates.

Right

But Dominica Energy Minister Reginald Austrie said his country believed that Petrocaribe would help Dominica to reduce its high electricity bill.

He said Trinidad and Tobago does have a right to voice its concerns.

"But that doesn't mean that we are not supposed to look out for the interests of our own people," he said.

Austrie said the Dominica government did not intend to turn its back on Trinidad, which supplies some 60,000 barrels of oil daily to other Caribbean nations.

He said local energy authorities were talking to multinational companies in the country about how they could form partnerships to make the accord work.