Dix­ie-Ann Dick­son

For­mer may­or of Point Fortin Fran­cis Bertrand is a man who has lived most of his life in Point Fortin and is steeped in the his­to­ry of the com­mu­ni­ty. He told the Busi­ness Guardian that that Pt Fortin has played a cru­cial role in the eco­nom­ic wel­fare and de­vel­op­ment of T&T. While Point Fortin is the small­est bor­ough in T&T, it has pro­duced mil­lions of bar­rels of oil which this coun­try has ex­port­ed and the rev­enues de­rived used for the con­struc­tion of much of its in­fra­struc­ture, in­clud­ing roads, bridges, schools and hos­pi­tals.

Bertrand not­ed that crude oil was first dis­cov­ered in the area in 1906 and it was the ba­sis of Point Fortin mov­ing from an agri­cul­ture vil­lage in­to a ma­jor oil-pro­duc­ing cen­tre. The town grew with the oil in­dus­try be­tween the 1940s and 1980s, cul­mi­nat­ing in its el­e­va­tion to bor­ough sta­tus in 1980.

Bertrand ex­plained that it was Point Fortin's black gold that at­tract­ed so many peo­ple from the is­lands, in­clud­ing Grena­da, St Vin­cent, St Lu­cia and even To­ba­go to Point, as they tried to earn a liv­ing. One of the per­sons who was at­tract­ed to Point from Grena­da was the late trade union­ist Tubal Uri­ah "Buzz" But­ler.

At the height of its pro­duc­tion, Point Fortin and en­vi­rons were re­spon­si­ble for about 60,000 bar­rels of oil a day out of Trin­mar and an­oth­er 30,000 on­land. It was al­so re­spon­si­ble for its own small re­fin­ery, which was even­tu­al­ly shut down.

Bertrand said Point Fortin al­so had one of the best trade schools and trained many of the lead­ers in the in­dus­try, in­clud­ing the late Kei­th Awong, who was the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Petrotrin and who served on sev­er­al boards. Af­ter the end of the oil boom, Point Fortin was hit hard by eco­nom­ic re­ces­sion in the 1980s and the clo­sure of its oil re­fin­ery. Con­struc­tion of an liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas (LNG) plant by At­lantic boost­ed the rev­enues com­ing out of Point, but it did not nec­es­sar­i­ly boost the econ­o­my of the bor­ough.

Bertrand said this is why Point Fortin Bor­ough Bay was in­sti­tut­ed to en­cour­age the use of cul­ture to gen­er­ate rev­enues for the com­mu­ni­ty.

Facts about Point

Point Fortin is lo­cat­ed in south­west­ern Trinidad, about 32 kilo­me­tres (20 miles) south­west of San Fer­nan­do. At the be­gin­ning of the 20th cen­tu­ry, (be­fore the dis­cov­ery of oil) Point Fortin was an agri­cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ty with three dis­tinct and sep­a­rate­ly owned co­coa and co­conut es­tates. These es­tates were sparse­ly pop­u­lat­ed. Em­ploy­ment was pro­vid­ed for a small num­ber of work­ers who de­pend­ed on the es­tates for their liv­ing ac­com­mo­da­tion as well as their food and oth­er sup­plies. Trav­el in and out of Point Fortin was by coastal steam­ers as there was no road in­to or out of the area. The in­hab­it­ed area was lo­cat­ed along the sea­coast. In 1907, the Trinidad Oil­fields moved in­to Point Fortin on an ex­pe­di­tion for the ex­plo­ration of oil and sank its first oil well on the La For­tunee Es­tates. That com­pa­ny turned out to be the on­ly one that sur­vived suc­cess­ful­ly, al­though there had been sev­er­al sim­i­lar ex­pe­di­tions by oth­er oil com­pa­nies. The com­pa­ny lat­er changed its name to the Unit­ed British Oil­fields of Trinidad, then be­came Shell Trinidad Ltd. In 1974, it was ac­quired by the gov­ern­ment and named Trin­toc or the T&T Oil Com­pa­ny, to­day known as Petrotrin.

The change from an agri­cul­tur­al- to an oil-based econ­o­my made a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact in Point Fortin. There was rapid de­vel­op­ment in the con­struc­tion of dwelling hous­es, plant, pipelines and oil tanks in the area. Point Fortin was boom­ing and labour, par­tic­u­lar­ly skilled labour for the new tech­nol­o­gy, was scarce and posed a ma­jor prob­lem. Trinida­di­ans did not seem to be at­tract­ed to the area. Al­though peo­ple mi­grat­ed from all over the coun­try, the pop­u­la­tion in 1931 was less than 500. There were very few hous­es, no schools, and recre­ation­al and oth­er fa­cil­i­ties. As a re­sult, Trinida­di­ans who went to work in Point Fortin nev­er took their fam­i­lies with them. How­ev­er, this changed when the com­pa­ny re­alised that in or­der to at­tract and re­tain work­ers, they need­ed to de­vel­op the area. This en­cour­aged fam­i­lies to set­tle in the area, and cou­pled with a growth in the com­mer­cial sec­tor, brought about such fa­cil­i­ties as a post of­fice, po­lice sta­tion as well as oth­er gov­ern­men­tal agen­cies and banks.

In the 1960s, the town be­gan to see a de­cline due to mas­sive re­trench­ment. The Gov­ern­ment tried to re­vive the eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty and even­tu­al­ly suc­ceed­ed in es­tab­lish­ing the Dun­lop Tyre Fac­to­ry. How­ev­er, the eco­nom­ic re­vival was on­ly achieved in the ear­ly 1970s as a re­sult of the oil boom and the Gov­ern­ment's ac­qui­si­tion of Shell Trinidad Ltd.

(Wikipedia)