RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Res­i­dents of Mara­bel­la are ea­ger­ly an­tic­i­pat­ing the re­open­ing of the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery as the Gov­ern­ment ad­vances talks with a slate of in­ter­na­tion­al and re­gion­al in­vestors, rais­ing cau­tious op­ti­mism that South Trinidad could be on the cusp of long-await­ed eco­nom­ic re­vival.

Speak­ing to the Sun­day Guardian, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal re­vealed ne­go­ti­a­tions are un­der­way with sev­er­al ma­jor play­ers, in­clud­ing Chevron of the Unit­ed States, the Na­tion­al Chi­na Off­shore Oil Cor­po­ra­tion, Nige­ria-based Oan­do, In­di­an Oil Cor­po­ra­tion and the Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union’s Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies and Tech­nolo­gies, which has sub­mit­ted a new pro­pos­al for con­sid­er­a­tion.

The re­fin­ery, shut­tered in 2018, is now tar­get­ed for a phased restart lat­er this year, with Mooni­lal sig­nalling that at least two plants will come on stream be­fore the end of the year.

For res­i­dents and busi­ness own­ers in Mara­bel­la, Pointe-a-Pierre and San Fer­nan­do, the de­vel­op­ment rep­re­sents more than an in­dus­tri­al restart—it is seen as a chance to re­store com­mu­ni­ties that have strug­gled for near­ly a decade.

As word of the pro­posed re­open­ing spread, Mara­bel­la busi­ness­peo­ple said they were look­ing for­ward to re­newed busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty in ar­eas that once thrived on re­fin­ery op­er­a­tions.

Busi­ness­woman Stara Dabiedeen, who op­er­ates the store Every­thing For Less along the South­ern Main Road, de­scribed the years since clo­sure as deeply chal­leng­ing.

“The past eight years have been dif­fi­cult. Busi­ness­es closed down along South­ern Main Road and hun­dreds of peo­ple were thrown on the bread­line,” she said.

“We want to see Mara­bel­la get life again, so we wel­come the re­fin­ery re­open­ing.”

Her ex­pe­ri­ence mir­rors that of many small busi­ness op­er­a­tors who de­pend­ed on steady re­fin­ery traf­fic and spend­ing. Since 2018, sec­tions of the once-bustling com­mer­cial strip have seen re­duced foot traf­fic, shut­tered store­fronts and de­clin­ing eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty.

Sel­wyn Charles, a Moru­ga res­i­dent, said while he sup­ports the re­open­ing, the process must be han­dled with trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

“When these multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies come in here, we have to make sure that those who run­ning the re­fin­ery are do­ing the right thing,” he said, ex­press­ing con­cern about gov­er­nance and over­sight as for­eign in­vestors en­ter the sec­tor.

For peo­ple who once worked at the re­fin­ery, the restart rep­re­sents hope.

Win­ston Har­vey, whose fa­ther worked at the re­fin­ery for 40 years, said the clo­sure left a void that has yet to be filled.

“Since Petrotrin closed, the young peo­ple can­not find jobs. I am very hap­py that this re­fin­ery is be­ing re­opened,” he said, adding that em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties for youth must be pri­ori­tised in any restart plan.

For­mer re­fin­ery work­ers, many of whom were dis­placed when Petrotrin ceased op­er­a­tions, al­so voiced sup­port for the ini­tia­tive, though some re­main wary giv­en their past ex­pe­ri­ences.

He­mant Ganesh, a for­mer se­nior re­fin­ery op­er­a­tor who spent 28 years at Petrotrin, said the tran­si­tion af­ter re­trench­ment was par­tic­u­lar­ly dif­fi­cult.

“It was ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult. When I got laid off, I had to work as a su­per­vi­sor at a se­cu­ri­ty firm. The worst part of it was los­ing the med­ical care,” he said.

Ganesh ex­plained that the loss of ac­cess to health­care un­der a con­trib­u­to­ry plan has had last­ing con­se­quences, es­pe­cial­ly as he now faces on­go­ing health chal­lenges.

“In the pub­lic health sys­tem, there are de­lays in get­ting care. Our med­ical plan in Petrotrin was a con­trib­u­to­ry plan, but it stopped af­ter the com­pa­ny closed,” he ex­plained.

Ganesh said af­ter eight years of hard­ship, he was ex­cit­ed for the re­open­ing.

“I want to go back to work. I am 55 now, but I can still make a con­tri­bu­tion. I hope when the re­fin­ery is re­opened, they will en­sure that the pen­sion plan is re-ex­am­ined so that it will ben­e­fit all the re­tirees and those who con­tributed to the pen­sion plan in the past,” he added.

Ne­go­ti­a­tions un­der­way

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Mooni­lal said the Gov­ern­ment, un­der Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, is press­ing ahead with plans to restart the re­fin­ery be­fore the end of the year.

In 2025, when the Gov­ern­ment took of­fice, it ap­point­ed a Re­fin­ery Restart Com­mit­tee. It has since been con­clud­ed that re­open­ing the fa­cil­i­ty is tech­ni­cal­ly, com­mer­cial­ly and fi­nan­cial­ly vi­able, par­tic­u­lar­ly in light of cur­rent glob­al de­mand for re­fined prod­ucts.

It rec­om­mend­ed a four-phase restart strat­e­gy.

Mooni­lal con­firmed it would be done in four phas­es. He said the in­ter­est from po­ten­tial in­vestors has been strong and wide­spread.

“We have been hap­pi­ly and kind­ly over­whelmed by ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est in the re­fin­ery from com­pa­nies near and far, do­mes­tic, lo­cal com­pa­nies, as well as im­por­tant ac­tors in Eu­rope, in Africa, from Asia, from the Caribbean and at home here,” Mooni­lal said.

He con­firmed that a re­cent vir­tu­al meet­ing was held with Chevron of­fi­cials, de­scrib­ing the en­gage­ment as pro­duc­tive.

Mooni­lal said the Gov­ern­ment has since pro­vid­ed the com­pa­ny with tech­ni­cal doc­u­ments and re­search ma­te­ri­als, as dis­cus­sions con­tin­ue on pos­si­ble col­lab­o­ra­tion with State en­ti­ties Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um and Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny.

The min­is­ter al­so point­ed to on­go­ing dis­cus­sions with re­gion­al part­ners, in­clud­ing Guyana, fol­low­ing meet­ings in­volv­ing Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Guyanese Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali.

He said fur­ther en­gage­ments are ex­pect­ed in the com­ing weeks as Trinidad and To­ba­go seeks to deep­en en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion with its neigh­bours.

In ad­di­tion, the min­is­ter not­ed that in­ter­est has emerged from Eu­rope, in­clud­ing Italy-based in­vest­ment firm Tech­n­i­mont, which is cur­rent­ly in T&T for dis­cus­sions on po­ten­tial fi­nanc­ing arrange­ments.

“We are now look­ing at the com­mer­cial struc­ture to go for­ward with the re­fin­ery. I ex­pect that all of that will take place with­in the next month or two, and we should have an agree­ment and a part­ner­ship fixed com­mer­cial­ly, legal­ly and con­trac­tu­al­ly,” he said.

Mooni­lal stressed that time is a crit­i­cal fac­tor, warn­ing that pro­longed in­ac­tiv­i­ty could in­crease costs and pose risks to plant in­tegri­ty and safe­ty.

He said ex­perts who re­cent­ly as­sessed the fa­cil­i­ty rat­ed its con­di­tion at be­tween five and six on a scale of ten, sug­gest­ing that while some degra­da­tion has oc­curred, the re­fin­ery re­mains in a work­able state.

Mean­while, chair­man of Guaracara Re­fin­ery Com­pa­ny Ltd, Gow­tam Ma­haraj, said the lev­el of glob­al in­ter­est re­flects T&T’s strate­gic po­si­tion with­in the re­gion­al en­er­gy land­scape.

He not­ed that prox­im­i­ty to ma­jor oil pro­duc­ers such as Guyana and Venezuela, cou­pled with the coun­try’s long-stand­ing re­fin­ing ex­per­tise, makes it an at­trac­tive in­vest­ment des­ti­na­tion.

“There’s a sig­nif­i­cant amount of in­ter­est in the world mar­ket in terms of in­vest­ment due to the po­lit­i­cal sta­bil­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go and al­so now the ge­o­graph­ic lo­ca­tion to where the ac­tion is in terms of pe­tro­le­um,” Ma­haraj said.

He ex­plained that the re­fin­ery’s busi­ness mod­el—tai­lor­ing fu­el blends to meet the spe­cif­ic needs of Caribbean mar­kets—sets it apart from larg­er in­ter­na­tion­al re­finer­ies, which typ­i­cal­ly op­er­ate on bulk pro­duc­tion sys­tems.

This flex­i­bil­i­ty, he said, al­lows T&T to serve small­er mar­kets that re­quire cus­tomised fu­el spec­i­fi­ca­tions.

Ma­haraj cau­tioned, how­ev­er, that while a full restart of all re­fin­ery units could take up to 39 months, a phased ap­proach would al­low for ear­li­er pro­duc­tion.

Un­der such a mod­el, ini­tial op­er­a­tions could be­gin with­in a year of fi­nal­is­ing com­mer­cial agree­ments, with some plants com­ing on­line ahead of oth­ers to gen­er­ate ear­ly out­put.

Be­yond pro­duc­tion, Ma­haraj un­der­scored the sig­nif­i­cant em­ploy­ment po­ten­tial as­so­ci­at­ed with the restart.

He es­ti­mat­ed that thou­sands of work­ers could be en­gaged dur­ing the re­pair and re­fur­bish­ment phase, with more than 1,000 per­ma­nent jobs ex­pect­ed once full op­er­a­tions are achieved.

“If you dri­ve through Mara­bel­la post shut­down, it’s a ghost town,” Ma­haraj said, de­scrib­ing the vis­i­ble de­cline in com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ty since 2018.

“Peo­ple are in need of this type of sus­te­nance.”

His­to­ry of re­fin­ery

Es­tab­lished in 1917, the Pointe-a-Pierre Re­fin­ery was once the largest re­fin­ery in the British Em­pire and played a crit­i­cal role dur­ing World War II as a sup­pli­er of avi­a­tion fu­el for Al­lied forces.

In 1956, US com­pa­ny Tex­a­co ac­quired the re­fin­ery, and in 1985, the gov­ern­ment, through Trin­toc (1974), bought over Tex­a­co’s as­sets ex­cept Trin­mar. In 1993, Trin­toc and Trin­topec were in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to the Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go Lim­it­ed (Petrotrin).

Petrotrin op­er­at­ed the re­fin­ery un­til it was shut down in No­vem­ber 2018. The re­fin­ery is crit­i­cal to na­tion­al en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty, in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment, em­ploy­ment gen­er­a­tion, re­gion­al sup­ply chain re­silience and im­proved GDP to the gov­ern­ment. Over 40 per cent of Trinidad’s GDP (and 80 per cent of its ex­ports) comes from oil and gas.