JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Sunday, March 16, 2025

Part II Point Fortin in a state of prosperity

by

20140511

In 1904 Point Fortin and Guapo were wilder­ness­es. For­mer­ly sug­ar plan­ta­tions, they had col­lapsed fol­low­ing Eman­ci­pa­tion and with the ex­cep­tion of a few small­hold­ings and a tract of co­conuts, the rest was dense jun­gle. In that year, the Gov­ern­ment ge­ol­o­gist, Cun­ning­ham Craig and an Eng­lish coun­ter­part, Arthur Bee­by-Thomp­son be­gan ex­plor­ing the high woods for signs of oil. In the hin­ter­land be­hind Guapo, they dis­cov­ered what they con­sid­ered pos­i­tive signs. Leas­es were arranged with La For­tune and Ad­ven­ture Es­tates and sev­er­al test wells were bored, all prov­ing to be large pro­duc­ers.

The first was done un­der the aus­pices of a hasti­ly as­sem­bled op­er­a­tion called Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Ltd in 1907. Drilled at Guapo, it was con­sid­ered to be the first com­mer­cial­ly suc­cess­ful well in the is­land as ear­li­er at­tempts had end­ed in eco­nom­ic dis­as­ter. In re­sponse to this suc­cess, a new com­pa­ny, Trinidad Oil­fields Ltd (Tol) was in­cor­po­rat­ed by Bee­by-Thomp­son in Lon­don in or­der to raise cap­i­tal for fur­ther work.

He trav­elled be­tween Eng­land and Trinidad ex­ten­sive­ly and over­saw the es­tab­lish­ment of a re­fin­ery at the old Clifton Hill Es­tate in 1910-12. This was the gen­e­sis of the Trinidad en­er­gy boom. World War I (1914-18) cre­at­ed im­mense de­mand for fu­el and Point Fortin grew ex­po­nen­tial­ly. A jet­ty was erect­ed and con­nect­ed to a small rail­way which ran from what is now Melville Tri­an­gle through the east­ern part of Ma­haica and then down to the sea. Pre­fab­ri­cat­ed bun­ga­lows were as­sem­bled to pro­vide hous­ing for se­nior (white) staff on Clifton Hill Es­tate and large work­shops built. By the 1920s, the oil boom in Point Fortin had at­tract­ed hun­dreds of peo­ple to set­tle in the vicin­i­ty yet still, there was a de­mand for labour. Unit­ed British Oil­fields Trinidad (UBOT) had as­sumed re­fin­ery con­trol from Tol. Be­tween 1930 and 1950 a rapid ex­pan­sion oc­curred with large num­bers of Grena­di­an and Bar­ba­di­an im­mi­grants com­ing to Point Fortin as labour­ers. These peo­ple ini­tial­ly lived in squalid squat­ting com­mu­ni­ties near Frisco Junc­tion and in Ma­haica un­til the com­pa­ny con­struct­ed de­cent se­mi-de­tached dwellings (along with a med­ical fa­cil­i­ty) at Techi­er Vil­lage. This was al­most in di­rect re­sponse to the un­rest of 1937 which saw Tubal Uri­ah Buzz But­ler strike the first blow for the labour move­ment in Fyz­abad. A new clin­ic for se­nior staff was al­so built at Clifton Hill and ex­ists as the present-day Point Fortin Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal. World War II saw im­mense im­por­tance be­ing ac­cord­ed to the re­fin­ery which pro­vid­ed much fu­el to Al­lied forces fight­ing in Eu­rope.

Be­cause of the in­fra­struc­ture im­ple­ment­ed by the oil com­pa­nies, Point Fortin res­i­dents of the 1940s and 1950s en­joyed many ameni­ties not known in oth­er re­gions of T&T. There was piped wa­ter on a 24/7 ba­sis from reser­voirs in Egypt Vil­lage, three cin­e­mas (in­clud­ing a dri­ve-in the­atre), elec­tric­i­ty (out­side of POS and San Fer­nan­do, there would be no na­tion­al elec­tric grid un­til 1955), and even the in­no­va­tion of piped gas. Un­til re­cent­ly, most homes in the town had a per­ma­nent laid-on gas sup­ply. In all, res­i­dents of Point Fortin en­joyed a much high­er stan­dard of liv­ing than what ex­ist­ed else­where. In the post­war era, many of the small­er oil com­pa­nies that had op­er­a­tions in and around Point Fortin (Kern Trinidad Oil­fields-KTO, An­tilles Pe­tro­le­um etc,) were be­gin­ning to wind up and more lo­cal cap­i­tal in­vest­ed.

UBOT be­came Shell Trinidad Ltd in 1956. In 1962 a new com­pa­ny, Trin­mar, was formed to ex­ploit off­shore oil de­posits in the Gulf of Paria. All these var­i­ous en­ti­ties were lat­er amal­ga­mat­ed un­der state con­trol as Petrotrin in 1993. A project to cre­ate em­ploy­ment with an Eco­nom­ic Free Zone saw the es­tab­lish­ment of a Dun­lop tire fac­to­ry that was plagued with labour prob­lems, as was its even­tu­al, suc­ces­sor, Carlisle tires un­til they too were forced to close down. A ma­jor spurt in crime com­bined with eco­nom­ic de­cline (and the even­tu­al clo­sure of the re­fin­ery by Petrotrin) saw a rough patch for the town which had been ac­cord­ed the sta­tus of bor­ough in 1980.

The an­nu­al bor­ough day cel­e­bra­tions have grown ex­po­nen­tial­ly to al­most ri­val Car­ni­val as the fore­most street par­ty. In 1995 land recla­ma­tion be­gan near the old re­fin­ery. This was to be­come Train 1 of a joint-ven­ture to ex­port Liq­ue­fied Nat­ur­al Gas (LNG). The first ex­ports took place to the Unit­ed States four years lat­er. At­lantic LNG has even­tu­al­ly re­placed Petrotrin as the largest en­er­gy com­pa­ny in the area. Point Fortin to­day is again in a state of pros­per­i­ty as a re­sult of this re­new­al in the en­er­gy sec­tor which has seen bil­lions of dol­lars be­ing pumped in­to the peo­ple and in­fra­struc­ture of the dis­trict.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored