SASCHA WIL­SON

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has con­firmed that he has re­ceived a pre­lim­i­nary re­port from the com­mit­tee ap­point­ed to as­sess the fea­si­bil­i­ty of restart­ing the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery.

Speak­ing with re­porters at his Oropouche East Con­stituen­cy Of­fice in Debe dur­ing his Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions on Sun­day, Mooni­lal said the re­port was un­der re­view, but the pop­u­la­tion could ex­pect ex­cit­ing news in the com­ing days.

The Gov­ern­ment had set up a 12-mem­ber team, led by for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine, in­clud­ing for­mer Petrotrin re­fin­ery man­agers and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union, to as­sess the fea­si­bil­i­ty and cost of re­sum­ing op­er­a­tions at the re­fin­ery, which was shut down in 2018.

Just last week, Op­po­si­tion leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, in her con­tri­bu­tion to the 2025/2026 Bud­get de­bate in Par­lia­ment, ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of go­ing silent on the re­fin­ery is­sue — point­ing out that Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo made no men­tion of it dur­ing his Oc­to­ber 13 Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion.

How­ev­er, Mooni­lal said the com­mit­tee had been work­ing fever­ish­ly be­hind the scenes and had sub­mit­ted a pre­lim­i­nary re­port. “We are look­ing at it now. It has to be re­viewed and we have some op­tions go­ing for­ward and some ex­cit­ing news that may arise in the com­ing days, vis-à-vis the Pointe-a-Pierre Guaracara Re­fin­ery and the avail­able al­ter­na­tives that we can look at, with the hope of re­open­ing the re­fin­ery very soon, with the hope to cre­ate eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty, gen­er­ate em­ploy­ment, and for­eign ex­change.”

While it re­quires more ne­go­ti­a­tions and work, he said they are ex­treme­ly pleased that the com­mit­tee has fi­nalised their re­port.

Al­though the min­is­ter did not give a spe­cif­ic time­line for the re­fin­ery’s re­open­ing, he said, “We will out­line some of the is­sues, some of the chal­lenges, and the fu­ture, which we hope will be bright. I am hop­ing not by this Di­vali, but by next Di­vali we should be light­ing up as well the re­fin­ery in Pointe-a-Pierre.”

How­ev­er, for­mer prime min­is­ter and en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young, in re­sponse, raised a few ques­tions about the re­fin­ery that he said need­ed to be an­swered. They in­clud­ed: “What would be the cost to restart it — es­ti­mat­ed at be­tween US$500 mil­lion to US$1 bil­lion? Who is go­ing to spend that mon­ey and on what terms? Where is the crude oil go­ing to come from?” He said he was cer­tain that the re­port of the re­fin­ery com­mit­tee would have no con­clu­sive an­swers to those spe­cif­ic ques­tions.

Mooni­lal was al­so asked about the Drag­on gas project, for which T&T had re­ceived an Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC) li­cence from the Unit­ed States Trea­sury De­part­ment to pur­sue. While ne­go­ti­a­tions with Venezuela are on­go­ing, the min­is­ter said they were pur­su­ing oth­er projects.

“We are not putting all our eggs in one bas­ket be­cause the Drag­on Gas field is one field. There are oth­er gas fields that we are work­ing on for ex­pan­sion. We have cross-bor­der fields, Co­quina and Lo­ran. We have oth­er in­ter­ests as well in cross-bor­der fields. We have a de­vel­op­ment with Grena­da which we are look­ing at as well, and very soon we will be en­gag­ing in talks with the gov­ern­ment and en­er­gy sec­tor in Guyana and Suri­name in terms of our col­lab­o­ra­tions in those ter­ri­to­ries as well.”

Young, how­ev­er, claimed the Gov­ern­ment has failed to achieve a sin­gle new ini­tia­tive in the en­er­gy sec­tor in T&T.

“Every sin­gle gas project that Trinidad and To­ba­go has brought on­line and will bring on­line for the next few years is the work of the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion. Every­thing re­ferred to in the Bud­get in the en­er­gy sec­tor, in­clud­ing all of the re­new­able projects, are the PNM’s work.”