Cur­tis Williams

cur­tis.williams@guardian.co.tt

BPTT, the coun­try’s largest nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­er, has said it is plan­ning for a phased re­turn to its Port of Spain and Ga­le­o­ta of­fices but notes that it will be based on what the gov­ern­ment de­cides, in terms of its re-open­ing time­lines.

In re­sponse to sev­er­al ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia the com­pa­ny said it will al­so have to al­low time for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of new health pro­to­cols in­clud­ing the is­sue of so­cial dis­tanc­ing.

“BPTT has be­gun plan­ning for a phased re­turn to the work­place for both the Port of Spain and Ga­le­o­ta of­fices. The tim­ing of of­fice re­open­ing will be based on guid­ance pro­vid­ed by the Gov­ern­ment at its up­com­ing an­nounce­ment along with al­low­ing time for our fa­cil­i­ties and health teams to im­ple­ment of­fice health pro­to­cols to ob­serve so­cial dis­tanc­ing and oth­er work­place readi­ness mea­sures pri­or to em­ploy­ees be­ing al­lowed back in­to the of­fice.” BPTT told Guardian Me­dia.

The com­pa­ny had closed its doors for a month and asked its non es­sen­tial work­ers to op­er­ate from home since March 15th and it then ex­tend­ed that to May 15th. How­ev­er em­ploy­ees told Guardian Me­dia that they have been no­ti­fied that the ex­ten­sion of the work form home would con­tin­ue un­til May 31st.

BPTT said while the glob­al com­pa­ny had tak­en a de­ci­sion to keep its of­fices closed through to the end of the month dif­fer­ent coun­tries had the right to vary their time­lines.

BPTT told Guardian Me­dia: “Glob­al­ly, bp has tak­en the de­ci­sion to ex­tend re­mote work­ing arrange­ments un­til May 31 with the recog­ni­tion that whilst this is glob­al guid­ance arrange­ments will vary from coun­try to coun­try based on vary­ing na­tion­al guide­lines and lo­cal con­di­tions.”