Cabinet to consider refinery proposal within days, says Moonilal

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal says Cab­i­net could con­sid­er pro­pos­als for the re­open­ing of the for­mer Petrotrin re­fin­ery at Pointe-a-Pierre with­in days, as the Gov­ern­ment moves clos­er to iden­ti­fy­ing an in­vestor and op­er­a­tor for the fa­cil­i­ty.

Speak­ing to re­porters while dis­trib­ut­ing Di­vali treats to mo­torists, pas­sen­gers and mem­bers of the pub­lic at Debe Junc­tion on Fri­day evening, he said the Gov­ern­ment was com­plet­ing the nec­es­sary doc­u­men­ta­tion and le­gal re­quire­ments, with a re­quest for pro­pos­als (RFP) ex­pect­ed to be is­sued be­fore the end of the year.

He said the Gov­ern­ment had al­ready re­ceived con­sid­er­able in­ter­est from lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al en­ti­ties in­ter­est­ed in par­tic­i­pat­ing in the re­fin­ery’s re­vival.

“We are cross­ing the T’s and dot­ting the I’s so that when we come for­ward, we do every­thing right,” he said. Mooni­lal al­so said the Gov­ern­ment had re­ceived as­sur­ances from the Guaracara Re­fin­ing Com­pa­ny and tech­ni­cal per­son­nel that re­fin­ing op­er­a­tions could re­sume with­in three to six months once the nec­es­sary in­vest­ment was se­cured.

“We have re­ceived an as­sur­ance from Guaracara and the tech­ni­cal peo­ple that once we have the nec­es­sary in­vest­ment, with­in three to six months, we should be pro­duc­ing,” he said.

Mooni­lal said Trinidad and To­ba­go need­ed to re-en­ter the in­ter­na­tion­al re­fin­ing mar­ket and po­si­tion it­self to sup­ply gaso­line, diesel and avi­a­tion fu­el to the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty and oth­er mar­kets.

“There is a huge de­mand, in­ci­den­tal­ly, for oil for re­fin­ing. That will not change. There’s a huge de­mand for re­fined prod­ucts. That will not change,” he said.

He al­so said the coun­try’s ge­o­graph­i­cal lo­ca­tion pre­sent­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly with neigh­bour­ing Guyana’s grow­ing oil pro­duc­tion and the po­ten­tial avail­abil­i­ty of crude from the wider re­gion.

The Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery, for­mer­ly op­er­at­ed by state-owned Petrotrin, ceased re­fin­ing op­er­a­tions in 2018 as part of the re­struc­tur­ing of the com­pa­ny, which left thou­sands job­less. Guaracara Re­fin­ing Com­pa­ny was sub­se­quent­ly es­tab­lished to hold the re­fin­ery’s as­sets and over­see their main­te­nance.

Mooni­lal said the Gov­ern­ment was de­ter­mined to en­sure the process com­plied with the rel­e­vant laws and reg­u­la­tions, but in­sist­ed that ef­forts to re­open the fa­cil­i­ty must not be ob­struct­ed.

“No one, ab­solute­ly no one, must stand in our way to re­open the re­fin­ery,” he said.

Mean­while, Mooni­lal said he does not ex­pect the re­cent gains made by the De­moc­rats in the Unit­ed States midterm elec­tions to af­fect T&T’s en­er­gy arrange­ments with Venezuela, in­clud­ing the li­cences grant­ed by the US for the de­vel­op­ment of the Drag­on gas field and the Lo­ran-Man­a­tee field.

Mooni­lal said the li­cences were grant­ed by the Unit­ed States ad­min­is­tra­tion, and there was no in­di­ca­tion that the coun­try’s plans would change.

“These li­cences are se­cured; as you know, it is a mat­ter of the Unit­ed States ad­min­is­tra­tion, and we are very con­fi­dent that our progress on both the Drag­on and the Lo­ran field will con­tin­ue,” he said.

He said a mea­sure­ment me­ter­ing agree­ment for the Lo­ran field was be­ing worked on and had to be com­plet­ed be­fore the li­cence dead­line.

He said a tech­ni­cal team would first have to trav­el to Venezuela to set­tle out­stand­ing pro­vi­sions and terms of the agree­ments be­fore the en­er­gy min­is­ters of both coun­tries could meet to fi­nalise and sign them.

The Gov­ern­ment was hop­ing to com­plete that process by the end of No­vem­ber, he said.