An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter
an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 350 em­ploy­ees at Nu­trien’s Point Lisas ni­tro­gen com­plex face re­trench­ment as the Cana­di­an fer­tilis­er gi­ant moves to in­def­i­nite­ly shut down its Trinidad op­er­a­tions.

Work­ers were in­formed of the de­ci­sion dur­ing a staff meet­ing yes­ter­day, where man­age­ment, which is head­ed by pres­i­dent CEO Ken Seitz, an­nounced plans to be­gin cut­ting jobs as the com­pa­ny winds down its ni­tro­gen busi­ness in Trinidad by year-end.

The move marks the cul­mi­na­tion of a strate­gic re­view launched af­ter Nu­trien im­ple­ment­ed a con­trolled shut­down of the Point Lisas fa­cil­i­ty on Oc­to­ber 23, 2025, cit­ing re­strict­ed ac­cess to port fa­cil­i­ties and the lack of a re­li­able and eco­nom­i­cal­ly vi­able nat­ur­al gas sup­ply.

The shut­down was ini­tial­ly pre­sent­ed as tem­po­rary, with the com­pa­ny in­di­cat­ing it would con­tin­ue dis­cus­sions with stake­hold­ers while as­sess­ing op­tions for the op­er­a­tion’s fu­ture.

With­in days of the clo­sure, around 350 con­tract work­ers were sent home, al­though per­ma­nent em­ploy­ees re­mained on staff.

The sit­u­a­tion wors­ened in Jan­u­ary when the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) iso­lat­ed the gas me­ters serv­ing the fa­cil­i­ty fol­low­ing the ex­pi­ra­tion of Nu­trien’s gas sup­ply agree­ment on Jan­u­ary 1. At the time, Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed that rough­ly 400 per­ma­nent work­ers and 100 con­trac­tors re­mained at­tached to the op­er­a­tion.

Nu­trien sub­se­quent­ly ex­plored sev­er­al strate­gic al­ter­na­tives, in­clud­ing a pos­si­ble sale of the fa­cil­i­ty, main­tain­ing through­out the re­view that there was no pre­de­ter­mined out­come.

In its first-quar­ter 2026 fi­nan­cial re­port, the com­pa­ny con­firmed there had been no pro­duc­tion from its Trinidad and New Madrid fa­cil­i­ties since the Oc­to­ber 2025 shut­down. It al­so said it was eval­u­at­ing op­tions for the Trinidad ni­tro­gen busi­ness with the aim of im­prov­ing earn­ings qual­i­ty and free cash flow.

That re­view has now end­ed with the de­ci­sion to in­def­i­nite­ly sus­pend the Trinidad op­er­a­tion.

The clo­sure comes amid a pro­longed dis­pute with Na­tion­al En­er­gy over port charges. In May, Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed that Na­tion­al En­er­gy was still pur­su­ing mil­lions of dol­lars in dis­put­ed fees from Nu­trien de­spite the plant be­ing shut down.

A re­vised de­mand re­duced the claim from US$28 mil­lion (about TT$190 mil­lion) to TT$157 mil­lion (ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$23 mil­lion). The amount cov­ers port fees dat­ing back to Sep­tem­ber 2025 and stems from a dis­agree­ment over rates charged to the com­pa­ny.

De­spite the shut­down, Nu­trien has said its 2026 ni­tro­gen sales fore­cast re­mains un­changed be­cause pro­duc­tion from Trinidad had al­ready been ex­clud­ed from its pro­jec­tions. The com­pa­ny al­so main­tains it can meet cus­tomer de­mand through in­creased out­put from its North Amer­i­can op­er­a­tions.

The clo­sure de­liv­ers a sig­nif­i­cant blow to the Point Lisas in­dus­tri­al es­tate. Nu­trien’s lo­cal op­er­a­tion in­cludes four am­mo­nia plants with a com­bined pro­duc­tion ca­pac­i­ty of 1.8 mil­lion tonnes an­nu­al­ly and a urea plant ca­pa­ble of pro­duc­ing 600,000 tonnes per year.

Be­yond the di­rect loss of jobs, the shut­down is ex­pect­ed to af­fect con­trac­tors, sup­pli­ers and ser­vice providers linked to the op­er­a­tion, while Trinidad and To­ba­go stands to lose valu­able ex­port earn­ings and for­eign ex­change gen­er­at­ed by the fa­cil­i­ty.

Nu­trien’s im­pact on T&T

Nu­trien was one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s largest am­mo­nia and fer­tilis­er pro­duc­ers, op­er­at­ing from the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate and con­tribut­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly to ex­ports, em­ploy­ment and for­eign ex­change earn­ings be­fore it com­menced a con­trolled shut­down of its five-plant op­er­a­tions on Oc­to­ber 21, 2025.

The Cana­di­an com­pa­ny cit­ed port ac­cess is­sues and a lack of re­li­able and eco­nom­ic nat­ur­al gas sup­ply.

Key facts and fig­ures:

2018: Nu­trien Ltd was formed through the merg­er of Potash­Corp and Agri­um, bring­ing Trinidad’s PCS Ni­tro­gen as­sets in­to the new com­pa­ny.

Point Lisas op­er­a­tions pro­duced am­mo­nia and urea for ex­port mar­kets around the world.

1.79 mil­lion tonnes: Name­plate ca­pac­i­ty of four plants

85,000 tonnes: Av­er­age month­ly am­mo­nia ex­ports from Trinidad be­fore the shut­down.

55,000 tonnes: Av­er­age month­ly urea ex­ports from Trinidad.

140,000 tonnes: Com­bined month­ly ex­ports of am­mo­nia and urea prod­ucts.

Near­ly 600 jobs: Em­ploy­ees and con­trac­tors sup­port­ed by the op­er­a­tion.

788,470 met­ric tonnes: Am­mo­nia pro­duced by Nu­trien’s four Trinidad plants dur­ing the first nine months of 2025.

788,470 met­ric tonnes: Am­mo­nia ex­port­ed dur­ing the first nine months of 2025.

30 coun­tries: Ex­port des­ti­na­tions served by Nu­trien’s Trinidad op­er­a­tions.

Oc­to­ber 23, 2025: Nu­trien be­gins idling its Trinidad ni­tro­gen op­er­a­tions, cit­ing nat­ur­al gas sup­ply con­straints and port ac­cess re­stric­tions.

Oc­to­ber 5, 2026: Nu­trien shuts down its Trinidad op­er­a­tions, with staff be­ing in­formed that re­trench­ment is about to be­gin.