Sev­en years af­ter the lights went out at the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery and thou­sands of Petrotrin work­ers were sent home, the prospect of re­vival once again hangs over the na­tion­al land­scape.

Sun­day’s gath­er­ing of for­mer em­ploy­ees was more than an an­niver­sary of a painful clo­sure. It was a mo­ment of re­newed ex­pec­ta­tion, fu­elled by Gov­ern­ment’s sig­nals that the re­fin­ery restart, long treat­ed as a po­lit­i­cal foot­ball, may at last be edg­ing to­ward clar­i­ty.

Still, hope is not a plan. And the re­vival of Petrotrin—if it is in­deed com­ing—presents both op­por­tu­ni­ty and per­il for a coun­try still ab­sorb­ing the con­se­quences of a shut­tered re­fin­ery, di­min­ished fu­el se­cu­ri­ty, and an en­er­gy sec­tor strug­gling to re­de­fine it­self.

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of En­er­gy Ernesto Ke­sar, him­self a for­mer OW­TU branch pres­i­dent, brought a surge of op­ti­mism to the largest union crowd as­sem­bled in years. His an­nounce­ment that Gov­ern­ment in­tends to ho­n­our the land al­lo­ca­tions promised to for­mer work­ers is long over­due. Of the 2,814 work­ers who ap­plied to the Land Set­tle­ment Agency, on­ly 238 even re­ceived let­ters of com­mit­ment, and none have re­ceived land to date.

The di­rec­tive from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal for a com­pre­hen­sive re­port to Cab­i­net is a wel­come step—but it al­so rais­es an un­com­fort­able re­minder: past promis­es to Petrotrin work­ers have rou­tine­ly out­paced de­liv­ery.

Like­wise, the plan to re­open med­ical cen­tres for for­mer work­ers and their fam­i­lies is both nec­es­sary and sym­bol­ic. Petrotrin’s health fa­cil­i­ties were once a pil­lar of work­er wel­fare. Their aban­don­ment fol­low­ing the re­fin­ery’s clo­sure rep­re­sent­ed not just a loss of ser­vice, but a frac­ture of trust. Min­is­ter Ke­sar’s find­ing that the Pointe-a-Pierre clin­ic re­mains vi­able of­fers a clear “quick win.” Yet, the van­dalised San­ta Flo­ra fa­cil­i­ty tells an­oth­er sto­ry—one of ne­glect, de­lay, and the re­al cost of sev­en years of drift.

But it is the re­fin­ery it­self that re­mains the ful­crum of na­tion­al de­bate. Ke­sar’s as­ser­tion that “there are per­sons in this coun­try who do not want this re­fin­ery to be open” re­flects the deep po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic fault lines around Petrotrin’s fate. The OW­TU, still as­sert­ing its claim to suc­ces­sor­ship, re­mains a cen­tral play­er, with the Gov­ern­ment now in­struct­ing Labour Min­is­ter Leroy Bap­tiste to bring a mo­tion to Par­lia­ment sup­port­ing that claim.

The ques­tions be­fore this na­tion are not sim­ply about restart­ing a re­fin­ery; they are about re­defin­ing its pur­pose in an evolv­ing glob­al en­er­gy in­dus­try. Will a re­vived re­fin­ery strength­en na­tion­al fu­el se­cu­ri­ty, re­store lost jobs, and in­ject new mo­men­tum in­to the econ­o­my? Or will it sad­dle the coun­try with an out­dat­ed as­set in a world ac­cel­er­at­ing to­ward de­car­bon­i­sa­tion and new en­er­gy tech­nolo­gies?

OW­TU pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get, who con­tin­ues to de­scribe the clo­sure as “the worst eco­nom­ic de­ci­sion in the na­tion’s his­to­ry,” em­bod­ies the union’s long-stand­ing po­si­tion. His on­go­ing le­gal bat­tle with for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley on­ly un­der­scores how deeply Petrotrin’s lega­cy is in­ter­twined with po­lit­i­cal con­flict.

The na­tion can­not af­ford an­oth­er cy­cle of promis­es with­out re­sults. If the re­fin­ery is to restart, the coun­try must see trans­paren­cy, clear time­lines, sus­tain­able fi­nanc­ing, and a plan that aligns with mod­ern en­er­gy re­al­i­ties. If it can­not be restart­ed re­spon­si­bly, the Gov­ern­ment must be hon­est about that too.

Petrotrin’s re­vival can help—but on­ly if the mis­takes of the past are not re­peat­ed. The coun­try is watch­ing.