Lights out at Petrotrin yes­ter­day - and a new be­gin­ning for re­struc­tured com­pa­nies start­ing work on Mon­day.

That was the pic­ture as the life of the em­bat­tled state com­pa­ny flick­ered out on Gov­ern­ment's planned dead­line yes­ter­day, with re­struc­tured en­er­gy geared to kick off on Mon­day when 42 em­ploy­ees (so far) at its new com­pa­nies be­gin work.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Franklin con­firmed the num­ber in the new com­pa­nies as he replied in Par­lia­ment to Op­po­si­tion queries on the clo­sure of Petrotrin op­er­a­tions and what would take place ahead.

Yes­ter­day's clo­sure of Petrotrin op­er­a­tions, mak­ing way for the Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ing Com­pa­ny and its three sub­sidiaries, capped off Gov­ern­ment's "whirl­wind" three-month re­struc­tur­ing thrust an­nounced in Au­gust. The plan, which in­volved job cuts of all 3,500 per­ma­nent work­ers and ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1,400 tem­po­rary/ca­su­al work­ers, was fought all the way by the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union.

Speak­ing to re­porters be­fore yes­ter­day's sit­ting, how­ev­er, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "To­day will go down as a very dark day as the Petrotrin (cat­crack­er) flare and oth­er light­ing sys­tems have all gone out and with that light, thou­sands of work­ers are job­less and their fam­i­lies are fac­ing Christ­mas with lit­tle in their pock­ets."
Ac­cus­ing Gov­ern­ment of pres­sur­ing the Op­po­si­tion on the In­come Tax Amend­ment Bill to dis­tract from yes­ter­day's clo­sure of Petrotrin op­er­a­tions, Per­sad-Bisses­sar added: "The rea­son for this big 'dra­ma' on the bill is be­cause they've shut down Petrotrin to­day.

"I trav­el the Pointe-a-Pierre route very of­ten, the re­fin­ery flame was a land­mark, the re­fin­ery built in 1917 was there for 101 years. It was the econ­o­my's main­stay. So the Prime Min­is­ter knows the eco­nom­ic cat­a­stro­phe fac­ing us isn't this bill, it's be­cause Petrotrin's clo­sure will have far-reach­ing reper­cus­sions on T&T."

In Par­lia­ment, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Khan in Par­lia­ment, said, "As we speak, all (Petrotrin) plants and pro­cess­ing plants have been safe­ly shut down in ac­cor­dance with en­vi­ron­men­tal prac­tices. The re­fin­ery has been closed and steam plants are down.

"All hy­dro­car­bons have been re­moved and the en­tire plant has been placed un­der a ni­tro­gen at­mos­phere which is an in­ert at­mos­phere to save cor­ro­sion, fires and ig­ni­tions - and we're now go­ing out for a Re­quest For Pro­pos­als (RFP) for some­body to run the re­fin­ery."

Khan said the shut­ting down process­es are rou­tine op­er­a­tions that didn't re­quire any Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance, but not­ed that all ac­tiv­i­ties were un­der­tak­en in con­sul­ta­tion and un­der su­per­vi­sion of the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Agency.

Since there are no work­ers at the re­fin­ery now, he said a third-par­ty ser­vice con­tract has been award­ed to Damus Ltd (via pub­lic ten­der) to have staff mon­i­tor­ing the re­fin­ery, pro­vid­ing su­per­vi­sion and do­ing main­te­nance work.

"That's on as we speak," Khan added.

He didn't give the price of the Damus con­tract.

Go­ing for­ward from Mon­day, staff at the Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um com­pa­ny at San­ta Flo­ra and Point Fortin and Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny at Pointe-a-Pierre will be on the job, Petrotrin ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cials told the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day. They said Her­itage CEO Mike Wi­ley has been "on the ground" since Au­gust.

Khan in Par­lia­ment said, "As of to­day we've hired 39 se­nior and mid­dle man­age­ment man­agers. Of this, 16 are for­mer Petrotrin em­ploy­ees and 23 oth­ers (didn't work) at Petrotrin.

"At Paria Fu­el Trad­ing com­pa­ny, we've em­ployed three se­nior man­agers. Two are for­mer Petrotrin em­ploy­ees and one is a non-em­ploy­ee of Petrotrin."

Khan said no­body has been hired for the Guaracara Re­fin­ing Com­pa­ny Ltd, as that com­pa­ny will be the cus­to­di­an for re­fin­ery as­sets.

"There'll be very lit­tle em­ploy­ment there as there'll just be a cus­to­di­an and that em­ploy­ment will take place very short­ly," he said.

Khan said in­di­vid­ual state­ments were is­sued to all em­ploy­ees pri­or to clo­sure. He couldn't say if they were au­dit­ed, but as­sured the plan is in ef­fect and re­tirees are "all re­ceiv­ing their ben­e­fits."