RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Chair­man of the State-owned Guaracara Re­fin­ery Com­pa­ny Ltd (GR­CL), Gow­tam Ma­haraj, says the shut­tered Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery is at­tract­ing re­newed in­ter­na­tion­al in­ter­est fol­low­ing the in­ter­na­tion­al rat­ing agency Moody’s de­ci­sion to up­grade Trinidad and To­ba­go’s sov­er­eign eco­nom­ic out­look from neg­a­tive to sta­ble while af­firm­ing its Ba2 cred­it rat­ing.

The re­fin­ery, which was closed in 2018 un­der the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion, re­mains a key part of the Gov­ern­ment’s plans to re­vi­talise the en­er­gy sec­tor.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Ma­haraj said the im­proved out­look from Moody’s has strength­ened in­vestor con­fi­dence and is ex­pect­ed to en­hance the re­fin­ery’s prospects.

“It will bol­ster this restart and the will­ing­ness of for­eign play­ers who now have greater in­vestor con­fi­dence be­cause of the coun­try’s rat­ings,” he said. “Be­tween 2024 and 2025, for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment went very low.”

Ma­haraj said the tran­si­tion from a neg­a­tive rat­ing to one of sta­bil­i­ty is def­i­nite­ly a mile­stone.

“This rat­ing is a mark of con­fi­dence in terms of the gov­ern­ment’s ac­tiv­i­ties.”

Ma­haraj said the re­vised out­look sends a pos­i­tive sig­nal to in­ter­na­tion­al in­vestors who now con­sid­er Trinidad and To­ba­go as a des­ti­na­tion for cap­i­tal in­vest­ment.

“This im­proved rat­ing means for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment will in­crease, some­thing that Trinidad and To­ba­go def­i­nite­ly needs,” he said, adding that the coun­try was emerg­ing from a pe­ri­od marked by falling for­eign re­serves, deficit fi­nanc­ing and con­cerns over in­creased bor­row­ing.

Ma­haraj al­so not­ed that the en­er­gy sec­tor was al­ready see­ing re­newed ac­tiv­i­ty from ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al play­ers.

“We have seen the re­turn of Exxon and Oxy re­cent­ly. We have oth­er firms that have come and are in­vest­ing,” Ma­haraj said.

Oc­ci­den­tal Pe­tro­le­um (Oxy) has ac­quired a ten per cent stake in Exxon­Mo­bil’s off­shore Ul­tra Deep 1 (UD-1) ex­plo­ration block.

Asked to elab­o­rate about the new lev­el of in­ter­est in the re­fin­ery, Ma­haraj said dis­cus­sions re­main ac­tive, and the even­tu­al restart mod­el may not nec­es­sar­i­ly emerge from a tra­di­tion­al bid­ding process.

“It is one that we are in talks, and the out­come of those talks and dis­cus­sions will de­ter­mine what form and fash­ion the for­ward path for the re­fin­ery is,” he said.

While de­clin­ing to spec­i­fy the ex­act num­ber of pro­pos­als un­der con­sid­er­a­tion, he con­firmed that in­ter­est con­tin­ues to come from mul­ti­ple coun­tries with­in re­cent times.

“For ex­am­ple, you would have heard be­fore that the In­di­an oil com­pa­nies are in­ter­est­ed,” he said.

Ma­haraj ar­gued that in­creased ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion ac­tiv­i­ty nat­u­ral­ly com­ple­ments re­fin­ing op­er­a­tions.

“As you can see, the ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion area is abuzz with ac­tiv­i­ty. And it is the same play­ers, of course, will be pon­der­ing, what do I do with the crude? Where do I process the crude? And the an­swer is, of course, ob­vi­ous. Trinidad and To­ba­go has a re­fin­ery, a ful­ly in­te­grat­ed re­fin­ery.”

He high­light­ed the scale of the Pointe-a-Pierre fa­cil­i­ty, de­scrib­ing it as a com­plex op­er­a­tion with 27 plants ca­pa­ble of pro­cess­ing crude and pro­duc­ing fu­els for lo­cal, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets.

The GR­CL chair­man al­so point­ed to re­cent an­nounce­ments sur­round­ing new gas de­vel­op­ments, in­clud­ing Shell’s li­cence with Venezuela to de­vel­op the Lo­ran field, bring­ing an es­ti­mat­ed 1.7 tril­lion cu­bic feet of nat­ur­al gas to T&T, as an­oth­er pos­i­tive in­di­ca­tor for re­fin­ing op­er­a­tions.

“More gas means more pro­cess­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ty be­cause plants run on gas,” he said.

Mean­while, he al­so said preser­va­tion work con­tin­ues at the re­fin­ery while ne­go­ti­a­tions pro­ceed.

Ma­haraj said in­spec­tions are be­ing con­duct­ed to as­sess the con­di­tion of crit­i­cal as­sets.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing on­go­ing in­ci­dents of pil­fer­age at the sprawl­ing fa­cil­i­ty, Ma­haraj said GR­CL has com­mis­sioned a com­pre­hen­sive se­cu­ri­ty as­sess­ment and is ex­am­in­ing the use of elec­tron­ic fenc­ing, spe­cialised cam­eras and ad­di­tion­al light­ing to strength­en pro­tec­tion of the site.

De­spite chal­lenges, Ma­haraj main­tained that prospects for the re­fin­ery re­main strong.

“The Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment re­mains to restart­ing the re­fin­ery, and all of the in­di­ca­tors are such that it will hap­pen very soon,” he said. “It has a very pos­i­tive out­look.”

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has pre­vi­ous­ly in­di­cat­ed that the re­fin­ery is tar­get­ed for a phased restart, with at least two plants ex­pect­ed to re­turn to op­er­a­tion be­fore the end of the year.