An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh

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.