Pro­duc­tive dis­cus­sions be­tween a gov­ern­ment team and Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies and Tech­nolo­gies Com­pa­ny Ltd and oth­er stake­hold­ers yes­ter­day.

Pa­tri­ot­ic is the pre­ferred bid­der for the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery. They were ac­com­pa­nied to the talks with the eval­u­a­tion com­mit­tee and a Cab­i­net sub-com­mit­tee com­pris­ing of Stu­art Young in the ca­pac­i­ty as Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Robert Le Hunte, Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties and Franklin Khan, Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries (MEEI), by their in­ter­na­tion­al ad­vis­ers.

The Min­istry of En­er­gy de­scribed the meet­ing as "very pro­duc­tive," say­ing the main ob­jec­tive "be­ing the restart of the re­fin­ery."

The next steps, ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry, are the "es­tab­lish­ment of ded­i­cat­ed teams on both sides to achieve this man­date as well as a de­tailed in­spec­tion of the as­sets in the trans­ac­tion."

The min­istry said "as we seek to fi­nalise the trans­ac­tion there would be con­tin­ued di­a­logue be­tween all par­ties with a view to achiev­ing restart of the re­fin­ery with­in the ear­li­est pos­si­ble time­frame which would re­dound to the ben­e­fit of the cit­i­zens of T&T."