RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

While gas prices are high and bi­tu­men is scarce, the plants at the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery which pro­duce these items are rot­ting away, ac­cord­ing to the Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU).

Un­der cloudy skies, the pres­i­dent of the OW­TU Pointe-a-Pierre branch, Christo­pher Jack­man led a con­tin­gent of re­fin­ery work­ers in a march down the South­ern Main Road to the Pointe-a-Pierre Round­about.

Hold­ing flags and singing their union’s bat­tle songs, the OW­TU urged the Gov­ern­ment to com­plete the Re­quest for Pro­pos­als (RFP) process.

They al­so called on the Gov­ern­ment to hand over the re­fin­ery to Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies and Tech­nolo­gies, a sub­sidiary com­pa­ny of the OW­TU, which has al­ready made four bids to ac­quire the re­fin­ery. 

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Jack­man ex­plained the rea­sons for the march.

“This week, the Prime Min­is­ter made it clear that the re­fin­ery is not a bud­getary item and as far as he is con­cerned he has dealt with the re­fin­ery sit­u­a­tion.

“We were made aware that there is a (Re­quest for Pro­pos­als) RFP on­go­ing and now we are hear­ing that this is not a bud­getary item. It is quite dis­turb­ing and we be­lieve the Prime Min­is­ter has to ac­count to the peo­ple of T&T as to what is the sit­u­a­tion with this as­set (re­fin­ery),” Jack­man said.

He not­ed that ris­ing fu­el prices and the scarci­ty of bi­tu­men were bur­den­some to the pub­lic.

 “We are see­ing ris­ing oil and fu­el prices across the globe with the po­ten­tial to go high­er.

Re­finer­ies are mak­ing two to 3 times the nor­mal mar­gins and prof­its but yet we have our re­fin­ery down. It is rot­ting and while there is an RFP process, we are not be­ing giv­en any in­for­ma­tion. That is un­ac­cept­able. I be­lieve the cit­i­zens should de­mand an ex­pla­na­tion as to what is the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion with this as­set,” Jack­man added.

Asked what plants in the re­fin­ery were “rot­ting” Jack­man said: “We are un­able to as­sess, but I fore­cast that plants like the acid plants will be see­ing dif­fi­cul­ties be­cause the plant melts away with acid. The bi­tu­men plant will be clogged while this coun­try is starv­ing for bi­tu­men to fix roads.

They have the ni­tro­gen process to have a preser­va­tion lev­el but it’s been four years and these plants are not in op­er­a­tion. We want to know when the re­fin­ery will be restart­ed.”

“We are out here ready to work. We want the re­fin­ery run­ning for the bet­ter­ment of T&T.  Shell has its re­fin­ery run­ning. Shell de­clared in this very fis­cal year they made al­most 300 per cent prof­it com­pared to the nor­mal op­er­at­ing mar­gins. There are es­ca­lat­ing liq­uid fu­el prices and we are not cap­i­tal­is­ing on the re­fin­ery as­pect,” he added.

Jack­man not­ed that the RFP  process was sup­posed to be com­plet­ed in the past fis­cal year. 

Say­ing that the bids are un­der a clause of non-dis­clo­sure, Jack­man ex­plained: “Per­sons are still wait­ing anx­ious­ly to hear what the po­ten­tial is with re­spect to the sale. The Prime Min­is­ter said no­body is in­ter­est­ed in the re­fin­ery but that is not true. Pa­tri­ot­ic is wait­ing and ready to have dis­cus­sions on this as­set. The re­fin­ery now is down and rot­ting away. It is now 4 years, put the as­set to use,” he said.

Last May, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance and Cor­po­ra­tion Sole, Colm Im­bert said the cur­rent pro­cure­ment process be­ing car­ried out by Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings Lim­it­ed (TPHL) for the sale or lease of the Re­fin­ery has been close­ly mon­i­tored by the Min­istry of Fi­nance for a year.

He said the “min­istry is sat­is­fied that the process has been ro­bust and rig­or­ous, and com­plete­ly above board and con­sis­tent with best prac­tice.”

He said TPHL will make the best de­ci­sion in the best in­ter­est of the peo­ple of T&T not­ing that the Gov­ern­ment will en­sure that this process will be tak­en to com­ple­tion with the high­est lev­els of due dili­gence and in­tegri­ty.