SASCHA WIL­SON

Se­nior Re­porter

Sev­en years af­ter the shut­down of the Petrotrin Re­fin­ery, there is a re­newed push to restart op­er­a­tions by a col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers (CR­BC) and sev­er­al trade unions, in­clud­ing the Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union (OW­TU).

At a press brief­ing on Wednes­day at the OW­TU’s head of­fice in San Fer­nan­do, the union’s Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get re­vealed that the aim “is to kick start the econ­o­my.”

He said the con­sor­tium’s first pri­or­i­ty is the re­fur­bish­ment and restart­ing of the Pointe-A-Pierre Re­fin­ery.

The re­fin­ery was closed by the pre­vi­ous Kei­th Row­ley-led PNM Ad­min­is­tra­tion, on No­vem­ber 30, 2018.

At the time, the gov­ern­ment had cit­ed debt, in­ef­fi­cien­cy, and de­clin­ing pro­duc­tiv­i­ty as the pri­ma­ry rea­sons for the clo­sure.

An­cel Ro­get de­scribed that de­ci­sion an in­jus­tice to the peo­ple, which he says they in­tend to cor­rect.

“The aim is to re­vi­talise the en­er­gy sec­tor,” he said. “We will col­lab­o­rate to see what is nec­es­sary for that to hap­pen in terms of restart­ing op­er­a­tions at the Re­fin­ery. We be­lieve busi­ness­es and the peo­ple of T&T can ben­e­fit from this lev­el of col­lab­o­ra­tion.”

The Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers (CR­BC) is made up of 14 lo­cal busi­ness as­so­ci­a­tions.

CR­BC co­or­di­na­tor, Jai Lelad­hars­ingh, sees this as a new be­gin­ning for this coun­try's en­er­gy sec­tor

“In terms of the fi­nance,” he said, “it is go­ing to be raised in the in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nance mar­kets where there is a plan in place for this to hap­pen.”

“We will sup­port the unions and give them the best tech­ni­cal ad­vice ever re­gard­ing the rais­ing of that mon­ey,” he as­sured.

The pre­vi­ous PNM Gov­ern­ment had an­nounced Oan­do Plc as the pre­ferred bid­der for the re­fin­ery.

How­ev­er, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has since made it clear that her gov­ern­ment will not go ahead with that com­pa­ny, and that they will not ho­n­our any deal signed by the PNM.