PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

Staff at the La Brea In­dus­tri­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (Labid­co) were blind­sided by the an­nounce­ment by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in To­ba­go on Tues­day that the com­pa­ny was be­ing con­sid­ered for di­vest­ment along­side Na­tion­al Quar­ries, Hilton Trinidad, the Mag­dale­na Grand Beach and Golf Re­sort.

Labid­co man­ages the La Brea In­dus­tri­al Es­tate and is a sub­sidiary of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny. NGC has a 91.55 per cent share­hold­ing in Labid­co, while Petrotrin holds the re­main­ing 8.45 per cent. Trinidad Off­shore Fab­ri­ca­tors Un­lim­it­ed (TOF­CO) is one of Labid­co’s main ten­ants.

Last month, the Shell Man­a­tee Jack­et was shipped from TOF­CO’s off­shore plat­form fab­ri­ca­tion yard, which is lo­cat­ed in the in­dus­tri­al es­tate.

For­mer La Brea MP Ran­dall Mitchell point­ed out this fact as he re­act­ed to the Prime Min­is­ter’s an­nounce­ment on Face­book.

“Labid­co is not sim­ply an­oth­er State com­pa­ny to be ca­su­al­ly put up for sale. It owns and man­ages the La Brea In­dus­tri­al Es­tate, one of the most im­por­tant pieces of en­er­gy in­fra­struc­ture in south­west­ern Trinidad, and the home of this coun­try’s on­ly off­shore plat­form fab­ri­ca­tion yard. That world-class fab­ri­ca­tion yard is the largest provider of off­shore plat­form con­struc­tion in the Caribbean,” said Mitchell.

“It be­longs to the State. Just weeks ago, Trinidad and To­ba­go watched with pride as the mas­sive Shell Man­a­tee jack­et, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 5,000 tonnes and 384 feet tall, was loaded out from La Brea. It was the largest jack­et ever fab­ri­cat­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

He con­tin­ued, “Where was it built? At the owned fab­ri­ca­tion yard, op­er­at­ed by TOF­CO. Years be­fore that, the bpTT Ju­niper plat­form top­sides, then the largest plat­form fab­ri­cat­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go, were built right there in La Brea.”

The an­nounce­ment al­so raised ques­tions among La Brea res­i­dents and busi­ness­es who op­er­ate near the es­tate giv­en its im­por­tance to not just the com­mu­ni­ty but the en­er­gy sec­tor in gen­er­al.

David McIn­tyre, pres­i­dent of the Pitch Lake Tour Guide As­so­ci­a­tion, had a mixed view on the sit­u­a­tion, as he not­ed many of the pri­vate busi­ness­es on the es­tate em­ployed peo­ple out­side of the area but the es­tate still had a sig­nif­i­cant con­nec­tion to the com­mu­ni­ty.

“They have their work­force most­ly from La Brea. Be­cause if you look at the en­trance, that’s like at the round­about there, in the morn­ing time, you’d see peo­ple come in,” he said.

How­ev­er, res­i­dents said they were un­sure if a new buy­er would sig­nal an im­prove­ment.

“To make a de­ci­sion, we have to have the in­for­ma­tion who it will be sold to and what would be the ben­e­fit. And who will be the stake­hold­ers? Will they be in com­pli­ance? Will they do the cor­po­rate ser­vices and as­sist the com­mu­ni­ty? I know the com­pa­nies that they have there now, they as­sist the com­mu­ni­ty, re­gard­less of what tan­gi­ble way they do it,” said res­i­dent Terell Mar­celle.

“We know what we have. We don’t know what we’ll get.”