ANSA McAL, one of T&T’s largest pri­vate-sec­tor com­pa­nies, said yes­ter­day that the group was placed “un­der com­mer­cial duress” by State-owned Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC), which im­posed a 77 per cent in­crease in the price of nat­ur­al gas to ANSA’s Carib Glass sub­sidiary in Jan­u­ary.

In a let­ter signed by the ANSA McAL Group CEO, An­tho­ny Sab­ga III and ad­dressed to NGC’s act­ing pres­i­dent Ed­mund Sub­ryan, the com­pa­ny said it was left with no choice but to sign the oner­ous re­vised gas sales con­tract pre­sent­ed by NGC. The sub­ject of the let­ter, dat­ed Feb­ru­ary 5, was ‘Re­view of gas sales con­tract for the pe­ri­od 2026-2028.’

“With­out prej­u­dice to our rights, we con­firm that we will ex­e­cute the re­vised gas sales con­tract you have pre­sent­ed. We do so un­der protest and un­der com­mer­cial duress, sole­ly to avert im­me­di­ate and ir­re­versible dam­age to crit­i­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing as­sets and sig­nif­i­cant dis­rup­tion to em­ploy­ment and op­er­a­tions,” stat­ed the let­ter, which was ad­dressed to four Cab­i­net min­is­ters, the NGC chair­man, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce and the re­cent­ly formed Pri­vate Sec­tor Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In the let­ter, ANSA McAL said as NGC is ful­ly aware, “an in­ter­rup­tion of gas sup­ply to our con­tin­u­ous fur­naces and kilns would cause ir­re­versible struc­tur­al fail­ure with­in hours, re­sult­ing in per­ma­nent in­dus­tri­al dam­age. In these cir­cum­stances, your ul­ti­ma­tum has left us with no prac­ti­cal al­ter­na­tive.”

The group said it un­der­stands that con­ces­sions have been ex­tend­ed to cer­tain oth­er mar­ket par­tic­i­pants, in­clud­ing the op­tion to ex­e­cute a one-year gas sales con­tract.

“As a do­mes­tic man­u­fac­tur­er that has in­vest­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go for gen­er­a­tions and can­not eas­i­ly re­lo­cate op­er­a­tions else­where, we ex­pect that the agree­ment ul­ti­mate­ly gov­ern­ing our sup­ply re­la­tion­ship will con­tain con­ces­sions and terms no less favourable than those grant­ed to sim­i­lar­ly sit­u­at­ed coun­ter­par­ties,” said the group, adding that its ex­e­cu­tion of the nat­ur­al gas sales agree­ment “must not be in­ter­pret­ed as a waiv­er of that ex­pec­ta­tion or of our right to seek par­i­ty of treat­ment.”

The com­pa­ny said it un­der­stands that en­er­gy pric­ing pol­i­cy must evolve over time and it is not op­posed to change, nor does it ex­pect in­su­la­tion from eco­nom­ic re­al­i­ties.

“How­ev­er, pol­i­cy re­form should not come at the ex­pense of vi­able do­mes­tic in­dus­try. Any tran­si­tion that im­pos­es ir­re­versible dam­age on lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers ul­ti­mate­ly harms the na­tion­al econ­o­my and the cit­i­zens it is in­tend­ed to serve. Re­form and de­struc­tion are not syn­ony­mous,” said the group.

ANSA McAL al­so placed on record what it de­scribed as “the ex­tra­or­di­nary and dis­turb­ing na­ture of this sit­u­a­tion” giv­en the long­stand­ing re­la­tion­ship be­tween the par­ties.

“A cus­tomer re­la­tion­ship span­ning more than 30 years has been met with an ul­ti­ma­tum rather than mean­ing­ful en­gage­ment. This fail­ure to en­gage in good faith ne­go­ti­a­tions on an is­sue with con­se­quences for the wider man­u­fac­tur­ing ecosys­tem is deeply con­cern­ing.

“The de­ci­sion com­pels an in­dige­nous Trinidad and To­ba­go busi­ness to ac­cept terms that threat­en the vi­a­bil­i­ty of lo­cal pro­duc­tion, the sta­bil­i­ty of em­ploy­ment and the af­ford­abil­i­ty of goods for the wider pub­lic,” said ANSA McAL.

The group warned that the im­me­di­ate im­pact of a 77 per cent in­crease in price of nat­ur­al gas rep­re­sents a dis­pro­por­tion­ate trans­fer of bur­den to a sec­tor crit­i­cal to em­ploy­ment, ex­ports, and for­eign ex­change gen­er­a­tion.

“The im­pact of this change will not be con­fined to com­pa­nies. It will trans­mit through sup­ply chains to re­tail­ers, and ul­ti­mate­ly to or­di­nary cit­i­zens, re­sult­ing in high­er prices and re­duced eco­nom­ic se­cu­ri­ty,” said the com­pa­ny.