T&T Pa­tri­ots

The Gov­ern­ment has in­formed the pop­u­la­tion that the Guaracara Re­fin­ery will restart, promis­ing a sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic boost and much-need­ed em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties. No one doubts that restart­ing the Guaracara Re­fin­ery is tech­ni­cal­ly pos­si­ble. The crit­i­cal ques­tion is whether the re­fin­ery can be man­aged and op­er­at­ed safe­ly, re­li­ably, prof­itably, and sus­tain­ably over its 15- to 20-year in­vest­ment cy­cle across chang­ing gov­ern­ment ad­min­is­tra­tions—with­out shift­ing mas­sive fi­nan­cial risks on­to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s tax­pay­ers. This ar­ti­cle aims to stim­u­late con­ver­sa­tion and dis­cus­sion on this im­por­tant jour­ney the coun­try is about to em­bark on.

The foun­da­tion for mov­ing for­ward

The Restart Com­mit­tee’s as­sump­tions and risks un­der­pin­ning its find­ings of tech­ni­cal, com­mer­cial, and fi­nan­cial vi­a­bil­i­ty form the foun­da­tion on which the gov­ern­ment is mov­ing for­ward. The Restart Com­mit­tee was led by for­mer En­er­gy Min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine and in­clud­ed for­mer Petrotrin vice pres­i­dent of fi­nance, Shari­ba Ali Ra­jah; for­mer vice pres­i­dent of re­tail and mar­ket­ing, Kelvin Har­nanan; for­mer re­fin­ery man­ag­er, Gow­tam Ma­haraj (now chair­man of the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and chair­man of the Guaracara Re­fin­ery Board); UWI lec­tur­er in en­gi­neer­ing/main­te­nance, Kishore Ja­groo; op­er­a­tions and process en­gi­neer, Leslie Chang; OW­TU branch pres­i­dent, Christo­pher Jack­man; elec­tri­cal sys­tems/for­mer OW­TU month­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Dan­ny Goolcha­ran; plan­ning, eco­nom­ics, sched­ul­ing, and com­mer­cial port ma­rine man­ag­er, Mar­garet De Sil­va Okan­do; En­er­gy Min­istry se­nior chem­i­cal en­gi­neer, Yashee Car­ring­ton; En­er­gy Min­istry chem­i­cal en­gi­neer, Anuskha Ben­ny-Sookoo; and port, ma­rine, and ship­ping ex­pert, Len Chan Chow.

The com­mit­tee’s re­port has nev­er been made pub­lic, and the cit­i­zen­ry has not had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to crit­i­cal­ly re­view it. Fur­ther­more, no one on this team has di­rect restart ex­pe­ri­ence with re­fin­ery as­sets idled for over sev­en years at the time of the as­sess­ment. It re­mains un­clear whether they en­gaged ad­di­tion­al con­sult­ing ex­per­tise to as­sist with the tech­no-eco­nom­ic eval­u­a­tion. Time will tell whether the Restart Com­mit­tee emerges as the hero if all goes well, or the scape­goat if things go awry.

In the 2027 Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, said: “Our ob­jec­tive is to se­cure a cred­i­ble, com­mer­cial­ly vi­able and ful­ly fi­nanced arrange­ment that pro­tects the na­tion­al in­ter­est while cre­at­ing the con­di­tions for re­newed eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty.”

Lat­er, dur­ing the bud­get de­bate, the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries out­lined his ap­proach. Stripped of po­lit­i­cal jar­gon, Dr Roodal Mooni­lal’s plan breaks down in­to five main ar­eas:

Le­gal­i­ty first: The gov­ern­ment is fol­low­ing a strict le­gal check­list to en­sure po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents can­not file im­me­di­ate court in­junc­tions to stop the restart once an an­nounce­ment is made. They are al­so aim­ing to avoid re­peat­ing past ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties flagged by the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion.

Glob­al in­ter­est: In­vestors from In­dia, Africa, Eu­rope, the Caribbean, and North Amer­i­ca have ex­pressed in­ter­est, dri­ven by glob­al fu­el short­ages and US en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty needs. The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go (GORTT) is near­ing the end of com­pet­i­tive bid­ding and is prepar­ing to ne­go­ti­ate with a “pre­ferred bid­der or con­sor­tium.”

Pro­tect­ing the state: To pre­vent a rushed, dan­ger­ous restart, the Min­is­ter not­ed a ze­ro-tol­er­ance stance on safe­ty, warn­ing against “blow­ing up Mara­bel­la.”

Fis­cal­ly, the state re­jects us­ing large sums of tax­pay­er mon­ey—cit­ing a pri­or $95 mil­lion loss at Ni­Quan—and in­tends to shift all fi­nan­cial risk to pri­vate in­vestors.

The lo­cal work­force: The state high­lights our ex­ist­ing pool of lo­cal re­fin­ery ex­perts as a pri­ma­ry ad­van­tage, im­ply­ing the project can restart smooth­ly with­out re­ly­ing heav­i­ly on ex­pen­sive for­eign labour.

The time­line: In­stead of at­tempt­ing to com­mis­sion the en­tire re­fin­ery at once, the plan utilis­es a phased restart. Some prod­uct lines could be op­er­a­tional with­in six months af­ter a deal is closed and reg­u­la­to­ry ap­provals are cleared.

The miss­ing piece: who is dri­ving the bus?

While these high-lev­el state­ments sound promis­ing, the cru­cial de­tails need­ed to re­as­sure cit­i­zens re­main close­ly guard­ed. We can­not ex­pect po­lit­i­cal min­is­ters to pos­sess deep, tech­ni­cal knowl­edge of how to safe­ly restart a com­plex oil re­fin­ery; that is the job of com­pe­tent tech­ni­cal teams. Yet right now, those teams are in­vis­i­ble. Who are these teams, and what are their demon­strat­ed ac­com­plish­ments or ex­pe­ri­ence in trans­ac­tions of this na­ture? Who is lead­ing and ac­count­able for the RFP and Bid Eval­u­a­tion process in the ab­sence of an ac­tive Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings Lim­it­ed (TPHL) board?

To spark a mean­ing­ful na­tion­al dis­cus­sion and pro­tect the pub­lic in­ter­est, the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries should an­swer eight crit­i­cal ques­tions:

1) Who is on the eval­u­a­tion team? Who is lead­ing the restart process, and what are their qual­i­fi­ca­tions? To build con­fi­dence, the pub­lic must know who is pro­tect­ing our na­tion­al in­ter­est, who to thank if it suc­ceeds, and who to hold ac­count­able if it fails.

2) Who draft­ed the Re­quest for Pro­pos­als (RFP)? The RFP dic­tates ex­act­ly what in­vestors are bid­ding on. Was it draft­ed by high­ly ex­pe­ri­enced com­mer­cial and tech­ni­cal sub­ject mat­ter ex­perts?

3) Where does the bid­ding process stand? Has the for­mal RFP process been com­plet­ed, or is the state still look­ing at a loose list of in­ter­est­ed par­ties? Is GORTT prepar­ing to ne­go­ti­ate with a pre­ferred bid­der or con­sor­tium in the ab­sence of a trans­par­ent bid­ding and eval­u­a­tion process?

4) Is there a pre­ferred busi­ness mod­el, and what is it? The union-backed com­pa­ny, Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies and Tech­nolo­gies, has pub­licly stat­ed it will play a key role. GORTT’s ad­vo­ca­cy for a phased restart begs the ques­tion: who is in­vest­ing—pri­vate en­ti­ties, GORTT, or a joint ven­ture—and what is the ex­act busi­ness mod­el?

5) Can the Min­istry of En­er­gy po­lice this project? His­tor­i­cal­ly, the Min­istry of En­er­gy has lacked the staff and re­sources to prop­er­ly over­see mas­sive op­er­a­tions in its reg­u­la­to­ry role. Does it cur­rent­ly pos­sess the tech­ni­cal com­pe­ten­cies re­quired to en­sure a safe restart?

6) Will en­vi­ron­men­tal laws be en­forced? Petrotrin his­tor­i­cal­ly main­tained a poor en­vi­ron­men­tal record. Will the new op­er­a­tor be strict­ly re­quired to meet all EMA rules for air, wa­ter, noise, waste and se­cure a valid Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance (CEC)?

7) Is union rep­re­sen­ta­tion guar­an­teed? Will the cho­sen in­vestor be legal­ly re­quired to recog­nise the OW­TU as the bar­gain­ing union for the re­fin­ery’s work­ers?

8) Do we tru­ly pos­sess the lo­cal ex­per­tise re­quired to run the re­fin­ery? This must be eval­u­at­ed against sev­er­al his­tor­i­cal re­al­i­ties:

* Petrotrin’s poor work cul­ture pre­vi­ous­ly re­port­ed by Shell Glob­al, and poor per­for­mance re­port­ed by Solomon As­so­ciates;

* Petrotrin’s his­tor­i­cal need to en­gage a for­mer BP re­fin­ery man­ag­er and three di­rect ex­pa­tri­ate re­ports to over­see se­nior plant op­er­a­tions, en­gi­neer­ing, and main­te­nance in the years pri­or to the re­fin­ery’s clo­sure;

* Petrotrin’s man­age­ment record on its head­line Gaso­line Op­ti­mi­sa­tion Project and the failed Ul­tra Low Sul­phur Diesel plant;

* The Ni­Quan ex­pe­ri­ence, which was marred by cost over­runs, sched­ule slip­page, a fa­tal­i­ty, and loss-of-con­tain­ment in­ci­dents; and

* The Lime­tree Bay Re­fin­ery dis­as­ter on St. Croix (US Vir­gin Is­lands). That fa­cil­i­ty faced ma­jor op­er­a­tional fail­ures, tox­ic chem­i­cal re­leas­es, and se­vere en­vi­ron­men­tal vi­o­la­tions that forced an emer­gency shut­down in May 2021, lead­ing to bank­rupt­cy and mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar class-ac­tion set­tle­ments af­ter emit­ting dan­ger­ous lev­els of hy­dro­gen sul­fide, sul­fur diox­ide, and un­com­bust­ed hy­dro­car­bons that con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed lo­cal wa­ter cis­terns and forced the clo­sure of schools.

Re­al­i­ty check: The true roadmap to a restart

To help the pub­lic un­der­stand what a re­al re­fin­ery restart looks like, it is crit­i­cal to out­line the stan­dard, mul­ti-step en­gi­neer­ing and com­mer­cial process re­quired for an as­set that has been sit­ting idle for near­ly eight years:

Step 1: Se­lect­ing the Win­ner. A for­mal RFP is sent to qual­i­fied bid­ders. It re­mains un­clear whether the cur­rent gov­ern­ment utilised the bid­ding process com­plet­ed by the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion or ini­ti­at­ed its own. To date, no of­fi­cial win­ner has been an­nounced;

Step 2: Deep-Dive In­spec­tion (due dili­gence). Be­fore com­mit­ting cap­i­tal, a se­ri­ous in­vestor must con­duct a thor­ough re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion study as part of a manda­to­ry fea­si­bil­i­ty as­sess­ment. This study re­quires ex­ten­sive vi­su­al test­ing of equip­ment and a rig­or­ous re­view of main­te­nance records by ex­pe­ri­enced re­li­a­bil­i­ty ex­perts. For an as­set idled for eight years, this phase would take six to nine months and cost an es­ti­mat­ed US$30 to US$45 mil­lion. This is based on an in­dus­try rule of thumb of 3 per cent of the to­tal restart cost, which has bal­looned to an es­ti­mat­ed US$1 to US$1.5 bil­lion—dou­ble or triple the ini­tial 2019 es­ti­mate of US$500 mil­lion. (No­tably, when the Restart Com­mit­tee fin­ished its work, Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies en­gaged the Ital­ian firm Tec­n­i­mont [MAIRE] to com­plete a re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion study for US$50 mil­lion). To­day, that ex­pand­ed scope must en­com­pass:

* Re­fur­bish­ing all on-site process and util­i­ty equip­ment (pres­sure ves­sels, fired heaters, boil­ers, cool­ing tow­ers, elec­tri­cal, and in­stru­men­ta­tion);

* Re­pair­ing off­site in­fra­struc­ture, name­ly in­ter­me­di­ate prod­uct tanks, pipelines, pipe sup­ports, flare sys­tems, and oily wa­ter sep­a­ra­tors;

* Re­in­stat­ing ter­mi­nal crude and prod­uct stor­age, berths, and ma­rine load­ing fa­cil­i­ties; and

* Ex­e­cut­ing nec­es­sary tech­no­log­i­cal, reg­u­la­to­ry, and en­vi­ron­men­tal com­pli­ance up­grades.

Step 3: Iron­ing Out the Con­tracts. Fi­nal­is­ing lease, pur­chase, and util­i­ty agree­ments (gas, wa­ter, elec­tric­i­ty) typ­i­cal­ly takes at least two months af­ter the in­spec­tion phase. If a con­sor­tium is in­volved, nav­i­gat­ing com­plex joint ven­ture agree­ments can stretch this time­line sig­nif­i­cant­ly be­fore reach­ing an ex­e­cutable agree­ment.

Step 4: Re­pairs and Restora­tion. Phys­i­cal re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion takes sub­stan­tial time. Even un­der an op­ti­mistic, phased ap­proach—such as restart­ing the re­fin­ery in a sim­ple hy­dro-skim­ming mode be­fore ac­ti­vat­ing more com­plex, prof­itable pro­cess­ing units—it will take more than six months of in­tense en­gi­neer­ing work to guar­an­tee a safe, in­ci­dent-free start­up.

Re­al­is­ti­cal­ly, af­ter a pre­ferred bid­der is en­gaged, it will take 14 to 17 months just to pro­duce ba­sic prod­ucts in a sim­ple mode of op­er­a­tion. Giv­en the mas­sive re­me­di­a­tion work need­ed for me­chan­i­cal and elec­tri­cal sys­tems left idle for close to eight years, it is high­ly prob­a­ble that it will take at least 17 months be­fore the re­fin­ery pro­duces any­thing at all.

Why Gov­ern­ment-led projects fail

Am­bi­tious megapro­jects—es­pe­cial­ly those dri­ven by states around the world—fre­quent­ly col­lapse or fail to de­liv­er due to four struc­tur­al pit­falls:

* Lack of long-term vi­sion: Projects are of­ten launched with­out a clear, strate­gic pur­pose, fail­ing to align with ac­tu­al na­tion­al pri­or­i­ties;

* Un­re­al­is­tic de­sign and po­lit­i­cal time­lines: Ini­tia­tives be­gin with­out rig­or­ous fea­si­bil­i­ty stud­ies. In­stead, po­lit­i­cal de­ci­sions rush them for­ward, pri­ori­tis­ing short-term vot­er ap­peal over long-term com­mer­cial sus­tain­abil­i­ty;

* Weak in­sti­tu­tions and po­lit­i­cal shifts: Frag­ile gov­er­nance struc­tures and shift­ing po­lit­i­cal in­ter­ests dis­rupt progress. Projects are too of­ten ap­proved to re­ward spe­cif­ic in­ter­est groups rather than to ad­vance na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment; and

Cor­rup­tion and mis­man­age­ment: Fi­nan­cial weak spots—rang­ing from in­flat­ed con­tracts to mis­al­lo­cat­ed funds—thrive un­der poor over­sight. This lack of ac­count­abil­i­ty leads to stalled projects, bal­loon­ing bud­gets, and op­er­a­tional chaos.