KEVON FELMINE

De­spite calls by the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union and Op­po­si­tion to scrap the Petrotrin re­fin­ery bid­ding process, act­ing Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young says his ad­min­is­tra­tion will go ahead with the short­list­ed en­ti­ties and re­mains will­ing to re­open the moth­balled fa­cil­i­ty.

How­ev­er, dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Bud­get de­bate in the Sen­ate, Young said the Gov­ern­ment will not re­open the re­fin­ery in a way that bur­dens tax­pay­ers.

Young said a Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed com­mit­tee ap­point­ed to eval­u­ate Ex­pres­sions of In­ter­est had se­lect­ed three bid­ders: CRO Con­sor­tium (com­pris­ing lo­cal com­pa­ny DR Ram­per­sad & Co Ltd, Chemie Tech LLC and Ocala Group), US-based iN­ca En­er­gy LLC and Nige­ria-based Dan­do PLC.

“The eval­u­a­tion team has been giv­en the green light to en­ter in­to con­ver­sa­tion and ne­go­ti­a­tion with all three to see what may be the most fea­si­ble re­sult for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go to re­dound sole­ly to the ben­e­fit of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, so I con­clude by say­ing this Gov­ern­ment’s pol­i­cy is we will at­tempt to restart the re­fin­ery. This is the third time we have gone out in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, and we will not do so to bur­den the tax­pay­er with bil­lions of dol­lars in loss be­cause the coun­try sim­ply can­not af­ford it.” Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day on Young’s state­ment, Joint Trade Union Move­ment gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ozzie War­wick told Guardian Me­dia their call still stands. War­wick said it will not be the first time that Gov­ern­ment ig­nores the calls and the cries of the peo­ple. He said the trade union move­ment stands with their call for the scrap­ping of the process.

Dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion, Young said it was un­for­tu­nate that the modus operan­di of ir­re­spon­si­ble per­sons in so­ci­ety was to at­tack po­ten­tial in­ter­na­tion­al op­er­a­tors. He said these at­tacks do af­fect those com­pa­nies be­cause their brand is im­por­tant. He said what Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark told the Par­lia­ment and pub­lic ear­li­er this week was a com­plete fig­ment of some­body’s imag­i­na­tion.”

Young said he or­dered a cur­rent due dili­gence check on CRO Con­sor­tium, which Sco­tia Cap­i­tal Inc com­piled for Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings Ltd (TPHL), on Chemie Tech, DR Ram­per­sad and Co Ltd and Ocala Ser­vices Ltd. He said the on­ly mem­ber in­cor­po­rat­ed in T&T is DR Ram­per­sad & Co Ltd, with a di­rec­tor and share­hold­ers well known to the Op­po­si­tion, Nir­mal Ram­per­sad.

“It is a lo­cal en­ti­ty op­er­at­ing in Trinidad, with busi­ness in Trinidad for over 30 years. Chemitech Group is an en­gi­neer­ing, pro­cure­ment and con­struc­tion com­pa­ny, head­quar­tered in the UAE, es­tab­lished in 1997. In all of these com­pa­nies, there is no link to (Naveen) Jin­dal. The oth­er ridicu­lous sub­mis­sion made was that one com­pa­ny here is com­pa­ny is sanc­tioned by OFAC in the Unit­ed States and that com­pa­ny is Ocala Ser­vices Ltd.”

Young said a check of the US Of­fice of For­eign As­set Con­trol on Oc­to­ber 17 did not list Ocala as a sanc­tioned com­pa­ny.

“Once again, I am plead­ing with those who re­al­ly care about Trinidad and To­ba­go, do not try to scut­tle the Gov­ern­ment’s at­tempt to restart the re­fin­ery. Do not at­tack every in­di­vid­ual who does not fit your nar­ra­tive. A re­spon­si­ble gov­ern­ment and even those who may think their gov­ern­ment is in wait­ing would want what is best for Trinidad & To­ba­go.

“The re­fin­ery process will con­tin­ue. We have three who are be­ing sub­ject to due dili­gence. The Cab­i­net has tak­en a de­ci­sion.”

Out­lin­ing the his­to­ry, Young said im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter shut­ting down the re­fin­ery, TPHL en­gaged Sco­tia Cap­i­tal Inc to man­age the process. Project So­ca, (2019-2020) saw the OW­TU-owned Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies and Tech­nolo­gies Co Ltd se­lect­ed as the pre­ferred bid­der. Young said Gov­ern­ment bent over back­wards to find a way for the OW­TU to run that re­fin­ery, even giv­ing them ex­clu­siv­i­ty that no oth­er com­pa­ny got through the three rounds.

“We cau­tioned them at the time be­cause some of the char­ac­ters we saw ad­vis­ing them, we knew were not go­ing to give them the right ad­vice.”

Young re­it­er­at­ed that the bid failed be­cause they were un­able to raise the cap­i­tal for the trans­ac­tion.

“They came and said let the tax­pay­ers is­sues trade­able bonds that they can use. We came out of it be­cause it was cost­ing the tax­pay­ers. We could not put that at risk on the tax­pay­ers, so un­for­tu­nate­ly that failed.”

Project Ca­lyp­so (2021-2022) was ter­mi­nat­ed when the com­mit­tee de­ter­mined that pre­ferred bid­der Con­tent Con­sor­tium LLC was un­able to raise the cap­i­tal as well. In the cur­rent process (2023 2024), TPHL con­tin­ued to re­ceive un­so­licit­ed Ex­pres­sions of In­ter­ests. With tax­pay­ers pay­ing to pre­serve the re­fin­ery, the au­thor­i­ties se­lect­ed 10 bid­ders and re­opened the process, and saw more en­ti­ties sub­mit bid. They in­clude Jin­dal Steel and Pow­er, BB En­er­gy and Sarge En­ter­pris­es.