Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley has defended Government’s decision to shut down the Petrotrin refinery on a trip to Guyana, saying it was done as a result of “financial concerns” about the refinery.
He did so as he dismissed the notion that T&T’s petroleum sector is in a “state” and therefore has no authority to advise Guyana, which is now getting into the Hydrocarbon sector following massive oil finds.
Rowley was in Guyana to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with Guyana President Brigadier David Granger on Energy Sector Cooperation.
Granger said he was confident that the “combination of Guyana’s natural resources with the entrepreneurial expertise, capital and investment from Trinidad and Tobago would result in a win-win situation for both countries.”
He dismissed as “unjustified fears” concerns from the Guyana Chamber that the agreement “was tantamount to giving away the family jewels.”
“This is not true, it is simply a means of collaborating, not only in production but in marketing, in gas, in treating with oil spills and multi-national corporations,” Granger said.
“The MOU is a means of benefitting from Trinidad and Tobago’s advice, their experience and expertise that they have built up over a long time. So the fears that this is some give away are completely unjustified.”
Responding to the concern that this was a T&T takeover of Guyana’s good fortune, Rowley expressed “disappointment,” saying “it is simply the participation of a good neighbour working with those who have the need for our presence, maybe finance, or entrepreneurial skills.”
Rowley said, “It is my expectation that any and all investment in Trinidad and Tobago from Guyana and vice versa will be something that will be welcomed and encouraged and that participation in our economies will be good for all of us.”
He said T&T was “proud to have the record show that as a small developing country, which was not a member of the Paris Club, when Guyana sought debt forgiveness we in Trinidad and Tobago wrote off billions of dollars of Guyana’s debt. We are not holding that as any quid pro quo, but it is circumstantial in our position that we are a friendly cooperating neighbour of Guyana.”
During the media briefing, a reporter asked Rowley about the closure of Petrotrin 100 years after T&T country got into the oil business. “Why should the people of Guyana listen to Trinidad on petroleum, specifically when that country is in the economic state it’s in with regard to that sector?”
Rowley responded, “Let me make it clear to anyone listening, Trinidad and Tobago is in no state.”
While Rowley conceded that “we have had a bit of difficulty from one time or another since time immemorial,” he said T&T had “done well for itself” and did so largely “on the back of the hydrocarbon business. So I am not sure I subscribe to the view of us being in any state.”
As one of the oldest oil producers in the world, Rowley said over time “it did very well for us as the international market-place allowed us to prosper.”
He said much of this country’s reserves today “that buttress us in this difficult period is as a result of earnings in the marketplace” and gains in education, health, telecommunication, roads and other sectors he said “were paid for by earnings in hydrocarbon.”
“If today we are having to treat with a piece of equipment, not the oil industry, the refining equipment, if we have financial concerns about that and we take rectification that puts us in no state but in a better position to continue to prosper in the hydrocarbon sector,” the PM said.
Rowley told the Guyanese media, “We can only see positives if our countries collaborate in this business of the hydrocarbon industry.”