RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get says Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies and Tech­nolo­gies Com­pa­ny Ltd will be part of what­ev­er arrange­ment emerges for the re­open­ing of the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery, al­though he has not dis­closed who the prospec­tive op­er­a­tor will be.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Sat­ur­day at the com­mem­o­ra­tion ser­vice of the off­shore fire which killed 14 work­ers on Oc­to­ber 17, 1985, Ro­get ex­pressed con­fi­dence that an an­nounce­ment on the re­fin­ery’s fu­ture would be made soon, urg­ing the pub­lic to re­main pa­tient as dis­cus­sions con­tin­ue. He said a safe re­fin­ery open­ing would be a top pri­or­i­ty.

“Pa­tri­ot­ic, like all the oth­er well-mean­ing cit­i­zens, will be a part of what­ev­er oc­curs at the re­fin­ery,” Ro­get said, adding, “Fas­ten your seat­belt, keep your head to the ground and the prop­er an­nounce­ment will be made in the full­ness of time, not too long from now.” Ro­get said the OW­TU re­mained con­vinced that the re­fin­ery could be restart­ed and op­er­at­ed safe­ly for the ben­e­fit of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“If there is any­body who knows that the re­fin­ery should not have been shut down and that it can be restart­ed and op­er­at­ed safe­ly for the ben­e­fit of the coun­try, if there is any­body who knows that, it is the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union, and it shall hap­pen,” he said.

Pa­tri­ot­ic, the com­pa­ny backed by the OW­TU, has pre­vi­ous­ly pur­sued the ac­qui­si­tion and op­er­a­tion of the re­fin­ery, af­ter it was closed by the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion in No­vem­ber 2018 un­der a Petrotrin re­struc­tur­ing plan. The union had sought to take over the fa­cil­i­ty through Pa­tri­ot­ic, but the com­pa­ny did not se­cure the as­set un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion’s dis­pos­al process.

San Fer­nan­do Busi­ness Cham­ber pres­i­dent Daphne Bartlett re­cent­ly said that the re­fin­ery’s re­open­ing is a ma­jor na­tion­al is­sue be­cause of its po­ten­tial to re­store em­ploy­ment, stim­u­late eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty in south Trinidad and strength­en the coun­try’s en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty.

Mean­while, con­tact­ed yes­ter­day on Ro­get’s claim, Guaracara Re­fin­ing Com­pa­ny Ltd chair­man Gow­tam Ma­haraj said the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed con­sor­tium ap­proach would al­low all in­ter­est­ed par­ties with the nec­es­sary re­sources and ex­per­tise to con­tribute to the re­fin­ery’s fu­ture op­er­a­tions.

Ma­haraj said in­di­vid­u­als and en­ti­ties with fi­nan­cial re­sources, tech­ni­cal ex­per­tise, oth­er re­sources or tal­ent would have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in the gov­er­nance of the re­fin­ery’s op­er­a­tions.

“The min­is­ter coined it as the con­sor­tium ap­proach, which means that it is all-in­clu­sive to be able to get the best for Trinidad and To­ba­go as far as re­fin­ing is con­cerned,” Ma­haraj said.

He added that the ap­proach would wel­come par­ties with rel­e­vant ex­pe­ri­ence, com­pe­ten­cies and some­thing mean­ing­ful to con­tribute.

“As the min­is­ter has said, the con­sor­tium ap­proach, which means that all hands will be wel­come on deck, who has ex­pe­ri­ence, who has a com­pe­ten­cy, who has some­thing to bring to the ta­ble, so there is no ex­clu­sion at this point in time. In fact, it is all in­clu­sion,” Ma­haraj said.

The Gov­ern­ment has com­mit­ted to re­open­ing the fa­cil­i­ty and ap­point­ed a com­mit­tee chaired by for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine to as­sess the fea­si­bil­i­ty of restart­ing op­er­a­tions. The com­mit­tee’s work was in­tend­ed to pro­vide a tech­ni­cal, com­mer­cial and fi­nan­cial as­sess­ment to guide the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion.

Speak­ing in Par­lia­ment on the is­sue on Fri­day, En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said the Gov­ern­ment was mov­ing ahead with the project but was de­ter­mined to fol­low the ap­pro­pri­ate le­gal and pro­ce­dur­al re­quire­ments be­fore mak­ing a fi­nal de­ci­sion.

“The Prime Min­is­ter has made a com­mit­ment that we will re­open the re­fin­ery. We have moved with haste, with speed, but I want to as­sure you we are do­ing things prop­er­ly,” Mooni­lal said.

He warned that mis­takes in the process could have se­ri­ous con­se­quences, in­clud­ing po­ten­tial safe­ty risks, and said the Gov­ern­ment would not com­pro­mise on the pro­ce­dures nec­es­sary to en­sure the fa­cil­i­ty could be op­er­at­ed safe­ly.

Mooni­lal said Gov­ern­ment was work­ing through com­mit­tees and le­gal process­es be­fore se­lect­ing a pre­ferred bid­der or con­sor­tium.

“They want us to make an­nounce­ments so they can go to the cour­t­house to­mor­row morn­ing and stop it,” he told Par­lia­ment, sug­gest­ing that pre­ma­ture an­nounce­ments could ex­pose the process to le­gal chal­lenges.

Mooni­lal al­so said in­ter­na­tion­al in­ter­est in the Guaracara re­fin­ery had in­creased as coun­tries re­assessed their re­fin­ing ca­pac­i­ty and en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty. He told Par­lia­ment there was in­ter­est from in­vestors and po­ten­tial part­ners in In­dia, Africa, Eu­rope, the Caribbean and North Amer­i­ca.

“We have met all the play­ers or those in­ter­est­ed. We are now in a process where we can now se­lect a pre­ferred bid­der or a con­sor­tium,” he said, adding that the process had to be han­dled prop­er­ly and all in­ter­est­ed par­ties giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty.

Mooni­lal al­so re­ferred to con­cerns raised by the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion about pro­cure­ment prac­tices, re­in­forc­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion that the process must be con­duct­ed in ac­cor­dance with the law.

The Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery has re­mained closed since No­vem­ber 2018.