KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

De­spite be­ing re­ject­ed by the Gov­ern­ment for a sec­ond time, Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies and Tech­nolo­gies Co Ltd is seek­ing a meet­ing with Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to show it has the fi­nan­cial back­ing to ac­quire the for­mer as­sets of Petrotrin.
Pa­tri­ot­ic’s par­ent or­gan­i­sa­tion, the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) said yes­ter­day it had en­gaged Swiss in­vest­ment bank Cred­it Su­isse to fi­nan­cial­ly back its ef­forts to ac­quire the Guaracara Re­fin­ing Com­pa­ny and the Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny.

In a me­dia con­fer­ence at the OW­TU’s Para­mount Build­ing head­quar­ters in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get ap­pealed to Row­ley to bring jus­tice to the failed ne­go­ti­a­tion be­tween Pa­tri­ot­ic and a Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed eval­u­a­tion com­mit­tee.

On Mon­day, Cab­i­net re­ject­ed Pa­tri­ot­ic’s bid and opt­ed to ac­cept new of­fers for an op­er­a­tor for the tank farm, port and moth­balled re­fin­ery.

But yes­ter­day, Ro­get said Pa­tri­ot­ic re­mains com­mit­ted to restart­ing the re­fin­ery and is hop­ing the Gov­ern­ment will give it an­oth­er chance on se­cur­ing the deal.
“We call on the ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter, we call on you as per­haps the on­ly per­son, in your ca­pac­i­ty as leader of the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad & To­ba­go, to meet with us, to have your team meet with us and to ex­am­ine the ve­rac­i­ty of our claim, but more im­por­tant­ly, the com­mit­ment of Cred­it Su­isse to close this,” Ro­get said.

Re­spond­ing to is­sues raised dur­ing a joint me­dia con­fer­ence by Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert and Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Franklin Khan, Ro­get said Im­bert made it seem as though Pa­tri­ot­ic does not have the mon­ey to com­plete the ac­qui­si­tion. How­ev­er, he said the main is­sue re­mained the lien at­tached to Trinidad Hold­ing Com­pa­ny Ltd (TPHL), which is the par­ent com­pa­ny of Guaracara and Paria.

When Pa­tri­ot­ic first bid for the as­sets in 2019, it of­fered an up­front pay­ment of US$700 mil­lion. How­ev­er, the Gov­ern­ment coun­tered, of­fer­ing Pa­tri­ot­ic a 10-year pay­ment plan with a three-year mora­to­ri­um. The Gov­ern­ment al­so at­tached 10 con­di­tions, which Pa­tri­ot­ic yes­ter­day said it sat­is­fied. As a re­sult, Ro­get said Pa­tri­ot­ic no longer re­quired the fi­nan­cial back­ing of some of its in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners.

Last year, Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar raised the is­sue of the lien. But in a sub­se­quent me­dia con­fer­ence, Im­bert said the lien was not an is­sue and that the Min­istry of Fi­nance would re­move it to com­plete the deal. How­ev­er, Ro­get said the Gov­ern­ment did not do this, re­sult­ing in Pa­tri­ot­ic of­fer­ing an up­front pay­ment of US$500 mil­lion due to the net-present val­ue of the as­sets.
De­spite Cab­i­net ap­point­ing an eval­u­a­tion com­mit­tee last No­vem­ber to as­sess Pa­tri­ot­ic’s new bid, there was no change.

Yes­ter­day, Ro­get said it was on­ly late last year that they ap­proached Roy­al Bank for fi­nanc­ing and all the bank need­ed was a guar­an­tee to sell from the Gov­ern­ment, but this was not forth­com­ing. Pa­tri­ot­ic lat­er met with Cred­it Su­isse, as it has fi­nanced Petrotrin and TPHL in the past.
“All the Gov­ern­ment has to do is to make good on its com­mit­ment to re­move the lien. If you can­not re­move the lien to make good on your of­fer, tell the coun­try that and then let us pro­ceed with Cred­it Su­isse to close this agree­ment,” he said.
Un­sure why the Gov­ern­ment re­fused Pa­tri­ot­ic’s of­fer, Ro­get called on the pub­lic to keep a close eye on sale. He won­dered whether the Cab­i­net or TPHL mem­bers had their pre­ferred op­er­a­tor for the as­sets, es­pe­cial­ly as they ex­pect some­one to ac­quire and op­er­ate the re­fin­ery in quick time. He al­so ques­tioned whether the Gov­ern­ment was talk­ing to an­oth­er po­ten­tial op­er­a­tor while ne­go­ti­at­ing with Pa­tri­ot­ic.
Asked how Pa­tri­ot­ic was mov­ing ahead, Ro­get said they were await­ing re­spons­es to let­ters sent to Im­bert and Khan on Mon­day night. Fol­low­ing this, the union will have a meet­ing of its gen­er­al coun­cil to plan its next move. He stressed that a Pa­tri­ot­ic ac­qui­si­tion of the re­fin­ery was im­por­tant to the econ­o­my, as it would pro­vide jobs, for­eign ex­change and hope to a coun­try in cri­sis.

The Gov­ern­ment shut down Petrotrin in 2018, ter­mi­nat­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 5,000 em­ploy­ees. Ac­cord­ing to Ro­get, many are still un­em­ployed in 2021. He said they have the knowl­edge and are will­ing and ready to get back on the job.