NGC pulls plug on Nutrien: State gas company ends supply contract to fertiliser giant; over 500 works face termination

Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor-News­gath­er­ing

ke­[email protected]

The Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) has is­sued a for­mal no­tice to fer­tilis­er gi­ant Nu­trien in­di­cat­ing that all gas me­ter runs to the Point Lisas fa­cil­i­ty will be iso­lat­ed from to­day, ef­fec­tive­ly cut­ting off sup­ply and ac­cess to port op­er­a­tions.

The no­ti­fi­ca­tion could ef­fec­tive­ly mark the end of the Cana­di­an-owned fer­tilis­er pro­duc­er’s 45-year pres­ence in Trinidad and To­ba­go, in­dus­try in­sid­ers said yes­ter­day.

How­ev­er, Nu­trien man­age­ment yes­ter­day did not close the door com­plete­ly on its T&T op­er­a­tions.

In a state­ment, it said, “We have en­gaged in dis­cus­sions in good faith and with in­tegri­ty to find a com­pre­hen­sive long-term so­lu­tion and sus­tain­able path for­ward. Our Trinidad and To­ba­go ni­tro­gen op­er­a­tions re­main shut down and all op­tions re­main un­der con­sid­er­a­tion. We will pro­vide fur­ther up­dates as ap­pro­pri­ate.”

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands the gas sup­ply con­tract ex­pires to­day (Jan­u­ary 1, 2026), af­ter which valves will be ful­ly shut. Nu­trien will al­so lose ac­cess to the port, re­mov­ing any re­main­ing abil­i­ty to op­er­ate.

Guardian Me­dia has al­so learnt that NGC had warned that fail­ure to sub­mit a pro­pos­al to set­tle “out­stand­ing port user fees” by De­cem­ber 31 would be treat­ed as con­fir­ma­tion the com­pa­ny no longer wished to op­er­ate in T&T.

The let­ter, which Guardian me­dia ac­quired the de­tails of, in­di­cat­ed Nu­trien would be barred from ac­cess­ing Na­tion­al En­er­gy’s fa­cil­i­ties at the Savone­ta Pier once the dead­line passed and ad­vised the com­pa­ny to take steps to safe­guard its plant, equip­ment and per­son­nel ahead of the cut-off.

NGC claims Nu­trien owes US$28 mil­lion in back­dat­ed port fees. Nu­trien, how­ev­er, re­ject­ed claims of un­paid fees, say­ing it had set­tled all port user in­voic­es is­sued to it, de­spite the port con­tract hav­ing ex­pired in 2019.

Na­tion­al En­er­gy con­tin­ued in­voic­ing Nu­trien at the same rates ap­plied un­der the ex­pired agree­ment and ac­cept­ed pay­ment each year, which the com­pa­ny main­tains con­sti­tut­ed an on­go­ing con­trac­tu­al arrange­ment.

For months, the com­pa­ny has main­tained that the fees were a uni­lat­er­al at­tempt to retroac­tive­ly ap­ply a new pay­ment for­mu­la.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands a pre­vi­ous cor­re­spon­dence gave Nu­trien the op­tion to es­sen­tial­ly pay what­ev­er fees they felt were ap­pro­pri­ate. But Nu­trien main­tained there were no “out­stand­ing” in­voic­es de­spite the chair­man’s pub­lic state­ments, which cre­at­ed a pub­lic im­pres­sion Nu­trien had failed to pay its oblig­a­tions.

Hun­dreds more

on the bread­line

Work­ers are ex­pect­ed to be for­mal­ly ad­vised of their ter­mi­na­tion be­gin­ning next week. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 400 per­ma­nent em­ploy­ees and about 100 con­trac­tors re­main at­tached to the op­er­a­tion. About 350 con­tract work­ers were sent home on Oc­to­ber 25.

For months, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has pub­licly main­tained talks were on­go­ing to re­solve the is­sue.

“We are still in touch with the Nu­trien peo­ple con­cern­ing Trinidad & To­ba­go. They have still ex­pressed a com­mit­ment to work with us and to in­vest in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he told Guardian Me­dia on Tues­day.

Asked if it meant Nu­trien was stay­ing, he on­ly re­peat­ed, “They have ex­pressed an in­ter­est in in­vest­ing and work­ing with us.”

While talks had not col­lapsed, they were not par­tic­u­lar­ly en­gag­ing, Guardian Me­dia was told. Nu­trien sources cit­ed long stretch­es with no con­tact from the Gov­ern­ment, prompt­ing the com­pa­ny’s top brass to vis­it the coun­try to speak di­rect­ly to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. She re­port­ed­ly in­struct­ed the min­is­ter and chair­man to set­tle ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to the Saska­toon StarPhoenix, Nu­trien’s con­trolled shut­down of its Trinidad am­mo­nia and urea op­er­a­tions in Oc­to­ber marked a turn­ing point in its re­treat from ni­tro­gen pro­duc­tion, prompt­ing the com­pa­ny to ac­cel­er­ate as­set sales, gen­er­at­ing near­ly US$900 mil­lion, and redi­rect cap­i­tal to­wards potash and oth­er core pri­or­i­ties.

“I’ve tak­en note as well that the Nu­trien com­pa­ny is now in the process of di­ver­si­fy­ing its pro­duc­tion base. They have tak­en de­ci­sions in re­la­tion to glob­al mar­kets and so on, and we wish them all the best.” Mooni­lal said on Tues­day.

For­mer prime min­is­ter and en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young said ear­li­er this week that be­cause Nu­trien spent about US$130 mil­lion on its T&T op­er­a­tions in 2024, if Nu­trien’s shut­down of its am­mo­nia and urea plants leads to a with­draw­al, it would be “a dis­as­ter.”

Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day sent for­mal cor­re­spon­dence to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny chair­man Ger­ald Ramdeen and What­sApped En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Mooni­lal seek­ing com­ment on the ex­piry of Nu­trien’s gas sup­ply arrange­ment and the iso­la­tion of gas me­ters at the Point Lisas fa­cil­i­ty. They did not re­spond to the re­quests.

Time­line: Nu­trien’s ex­it from T&T

Oc­to­ber 21, 2025

Nu­trien an­nounced it would be­gin a con­trolled shut­down of its Trinidad Ni­tro­gen op­er­a­tions from Oc­to­ber 23, cit­ing port ac­cess re­stric­tions by Na­tion­al En­er­gy, un­re­li­able gas sup­ply, and re­ject­ing claims it owed mil­lions in retroac­tive port fees.

Oc­to­ber 23, 2025

De­spite re­ports of a res­o­lu­tion, in­ter­nal com­pa­ny com­mu­ni­ca­tions con­firmed Nu­trien had al­ready shut down op­er­a­tions.

Oc­to­ber 25, 2025

About 350 con­tract work­ers were sent home as the shut­down con­tin­ued; car­bon diox­ide sup­plies were dis­rupt­ed na­tion­wide.

Oc­to­ber 28, 2025

Massy Gas se­cured an al­ter­na­tive CO₂ sup­ply from Pro­man, with gov­ern­ment agen­cies con­firm­ing the new arrange­ment was com­mis­sioned on sched­ule and at no added cost to cus­tomers.

Oc­to­ber 31, 2025

Pro­man con­firmed it would con­tin­ue sup­ply­ing CO2 to Massy Gas for the fore­see­able fu­ture fol­low­ing Nu­trien’s shut­down at Point Lisas.

No­vem­ber 11, 2025

Nu­trien con­firmed in its third-quar­ter earn­ings re­port that its 2025 sales fore­cast as­sumed no fur­ther out­put from its Trinidad op­er­a­tions, for­mal­ly ac­knowl­edg­ing the Oc­to­ber 23 con­trolled shut­down.

No­vem­ber 21, 2025

Se­nior Nu­trien ex­ec­u­tives met Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials in what was seen as a de­ci­sive meet­ing, fol­low­ing weeks of lim­it­ed en­gage­ment and stalled ne­go­ti­a­tions.

De­cem­ber 27, 2025

In­ter­na­tion­al re­port­ing de­scribed the Trinidad shut­down as a turn­ing point in Nu­trien’s re­treat from ni­tro­gen pro­duc­tion, link­ing the ex­it to port re­stric­tions, gas sup­ply is­sues, and po­lit­i­cal chal­lenges un­der the new ad­min­is­tra­tion.