Ex-minister wants transparent refinery restart process

An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter
an­drea.perez-sobers

@guardian.co.tt

For­mer En­er­gy Min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan has warned that the coun­try can­not af­ford de­lays, opac­i­ty or con­flict­ing agen­das in the ef­fort to restart the Pointe-à-Pierre re­fin­ery. She says the na­tion must move with ur­gency, guid­ed by a trans­par­ent, cred­i­ble and clear­ly de­fined strat­e­gy to en­sure the re­fin­ery’s vi­a­bil­i­ty.

“The longer we wait, the greater the risk of ir­re­versible de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture,” Seep­er­sad-Bachan said yes­ter­day.

“We ur­gent­ly need an in­de­pen­dent, rep­utable en­gi­neer­ing and in­spec­tion firm to con­duct a full as­set in­tegri­ty as­sess­ment, an­chored with­in a na­tion­al frame­work and over­seen by the Gov­ern­ment. The process must be trans­par­ent and tech­ni­cal­ly cred­i­ble.”

Her com­ments come amid re­ports of a US$50 mil­lion study be­ing con­duct­ed by the Ital­ian en­gi­neer­ing firm Tec­n­i­mont Ser­vices, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) and its com­pa­ny, Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies and Tech­nolo­gies Ltd, to as­sess the re­fin­ery.

The Gov­ern­ment has dis­tanced it­self from the study, stat­ing it is not in­volved, that no pre­ferred bid­der has been se­lect­ed, and that the fi­nanc­ing re­mains un­clear.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands the study is a de­tailed en­gi­neer­ing ex­er­cise de­signed to de­vel­op work packs for all re­fin­ery equip­ment, util­i­ties and ves­sels, iden­ti­fy­ing the ex­act work need­ed for a phase one restart. This goes far be­yond vi­su­al in­spec­tions or re­view­ing draw­ings. It in­cludes hands-on checks of pumps, process units, pipelines, de­con­t­a­m­i­na­tion and cat­a­lyst in­spec­tions, and may in­volve the re­place­ment of crit­i­cal equip­ment.

“Non-en­gi­neer­ing peo­ple read­ing the press re­lease might think it’s just an­oth­er con­cep­tu­al study, but this is se­ri­ous work,” a source fa­mil­iar with the study said. “Tech­n­i­mont re­cent­ly re­vived a moth­balled re­fin­ery in Har­court, Aus­tralia, down for 20 years, with a con­fig­u­ra­tion sim­i­lar to Pointe-à-Pierre. They bring tech­ni­cal ca­pa­bil­i­ty, and if Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies wins the bid, they would be­come a ma­jor share­hold­er.”

Seep­er­sad-Bachan stressed that a suc­cess­ful restart re­quires dis­ci­pline as much as ur­gency.

“This is not just an en­gi­neer­ing ex­er­cise; it is a na­tion­al project of strate­gic im­por­tance.”

Sources close to the re­fin­ery op­er­a­tions cau­tion that com­mis­sion­ing a com­pre­hen­sive, in­de­pen­dent and de­tailed in­spec­tion at this stage may not be tech­ni­cal­ly or com­mer­cial­ly fea­si­ble.

“A key ob­jec­tive of such an in­spec­tion would or­di­nar­i­ly be to es­tab­lish the cap­i­tal cost re­quired for a restart,” one source said.

“But if the fi­nan­cial ca­pac­i­ty and readi­ness to pro­ceed with a turn­around are ab­sent, un­der­tak­ing this study risks be­com­ing a wast­ed cost with lim­it­ed prac­ti­cal val­ue.”

In­stead, they ar­gued that prospec­tive in­vestors should as­sume full com­mer­cial risk, sup­port­ed by a phased in­spec­tion and recom­mis­sion­ing strat­e­gy tied di­rect­ly to their restart plans. This ap­proach would en­sure that tech­ni­cal as­sess­ments are linked to ac­tu­al ex­e­cu­tion, rather than be­ing con­duct­ed in iso­la­tion with no clear path to op­er­a­tion.

The re­fin­ery, which has been moth­balled for sev­er­al years, faces the threat of con­tin­ued as­set de­te­ri­o­ra­tion, which could erode its eco­nom­ic vi­a­bil­i­ty. A sep­a­rate source em­pha­sised that the im­me­di­ate pri­or­i­ty should be eval­u­at­ing the cred­i­bil­i­ty and ro­bust­ness of each bid­der’s restart strat­e­gy, in­clud­ing tech­ni­cal ap­proach, ex­e­cu­tion time­line, and fi­nanc­ing.

“Tech­ni­cal as­sess­ments must be di­rect­ly tied to ex­e­cu­tion. Oth­er­wise, it is just an ex­pen­sive ex­er­cise with no clear out­come,” the source said.
Ques­tions of po­ten­tial con­flicts of in­ter­est have al­so arisen.

In­di­vid­u­als linked to the OW­TU, which owns stakes in Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies and is aligned with the gov­ern­ing Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress coali­tion, re­port­ed­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in as­pects of the re­view.

Trans­paren­cy ad­vo­cates ar­gue that such in­volve­ment with­out in­de­pen­dent over­sight un­der­mines cred­i­bil­i­ty and pub­lic trust.
En­er­gy ex­pert An­tho­ny Paul yes­ter­day high­light­ed the mul­ti­fac­eted na­ture of a re­fin­ery restart.

“You need tech­ni­cal ca­pa­bil­i­ty to bring the plant up to speed, op­er­a­tional man­age­ment to run it, and fi­nanc­ing to make it work. With­out all three, any in­spec­tion or study risks be­ing an ex­pen­sive ex­er­cise with lim­it­ed val­ue,” he said.

Paul added that a phased, in­vestor-dri­ven ap­proach en­sures that tech­ni­cal as­sess­ments, man­age­ment plans and fi­nanc­ing align with re­al ex­e­cu­tion time­lines.

How­ev­er, the US$50 mil­lion Tec­n­i­mont study paints a dif­fer­ent pic­ture. Fund­ed and over­seen by Pa­tri­ot­ic, its fi­nanc­ing and pur­pose re­main opaque.

The Gov­ern­ment’s own Re­fin­ery Restart Com­mit­tee re­port­ed­ly had no knowl­edge of the study.

Com­bined with the OW­TU and Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies’ pre­vi­ous High Court judg­ment re­quir­ing re­pay­ment of mil­lions tied to pri­or fi­nanc­ing for the re­fin­ery bid, the sit­u­a­tion rais­es se­ri­ous ques­tions about fi­nan­cial trans­paren­cy and ca­pac­i­ty.

Mean­while, Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader Mick­ela Pan­day said the lack of clar­i­ty on the mat­ter is un­ac­cept­able.

“We sup­port a re­spon­si­ble and sus­tain­able restart, but sup­port can­not mean si­lence in the face of con­fu­sion, con­tra­dic­tion, and a lack of di­rec­tion. What is hap­pen­ing is a patch­work of dis­con­nect­ed ac­tions, con­flict­ing sig­nals, and unan­swered ques­tions,” she said.

A 12-mem­ber Re­fin­ery Restart Com­mit­tee, chaired by for­mer En­er­gy Min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine, was of­fi­cial­ly ap­point­ed. The com­mit­tee was tasked with as­sess­ing the fea­si­bil­i­ty of restart­ing the re­fin­ery and sub­mit­ting its re­port to Cab­i­net with­in four months.