Young blasts Govt over energy sector crisis

Geisha Kow­lessar-Alon­zo

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­[email protected]

For­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young has launched a blis­ter­ing at­tack on the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion, ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of in­com­pe­tence and mis­man­age­ment of the coun­try’s en­er­gy sec­tor fol­low­ing the shut­down of a ma­jor fer­tilis­er plant at Point Lisas, and warn­ing that fur­ther clo­sures can fol­low.

In its first quar­ter earn­ings call on April 30, Rich Sum­n­er, the CEO and pres­i­dent of the Van­cou­ver, Cana­da-head­quar­tered Methanex, said the com­pa­ny is con­sid­er­ing “all pos­si­ble out­comes,” in­clud­ing the po­ten­tial idling of its pro­duc­ing methanol plant or a short-term gas con­tract, as re­port­ed by the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian.

In a post on so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day, Young said that in less than a year, the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of gas al­lo­ca­tion pol­i­cy has al­ready led to the clo­sure of plants op­er­at­ed by Nu­trien, one of the world’s largest fer­tilis­er com­pa­nies, and has now put T&T’s methanol sec­tor at risk, adding that Methanex—one of the largest glob­al methanol pro­duc­ers—has sig­nalled that it may al­so be forced to shut down op­er­a­tions in the coun­try.

Young at­trib­uted the de­vel­op­ments to what he de­scribed as a “lack of con­fi­dence in the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment” and a fun­da­men­tal mis­un­der­stand­ing of how to prop­er­ly man­age the en­er­gy sec­tor.

“These shut­downs are due to the lack of con­fi­dence in the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment and their change in our gas al­lo­ca­tion pol­i­cy based on ig­no­rance and a lack of un­der­stand­ing of how to prop­er­ly man­age the en­er­gy sec­tor,” he stat­ed.

He said re­cent changes to the gas al­lo­ca­tion pol­i­cy have desta­bilised long-stand­ing down­stream in­dus­tries at Point Lisas.

“LNG, am­mo­nia and methanol are cycli­cal com­modi­ties, and to di­vert gas from our am­mo­nia and methanol pro­duc­ers at Point Lisas to AL­NG be­cause of mo­men­tar­i­ly high­er LNG prices is short­sight­ed and bad pol­i­cy.

“When these plants close and leave, it will re­sult in job loss­es, lost forex earn­ings, shut­ting down of ser­vice com­pa­nies and a lack of fu­ture in­vest­ments in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he added.

Young al­so raised con­cerns about the gov­er­nance of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC).
He said un­der the cur­rent board’s tenure, ma­jor petro­chem­i­cal com­pa­nies at Point Lisas have ei­ther ceased op­er­a­tions or in­di­cat­ed pos­si­ble fu­ture shut­downs, as he at­trib­uted these out­comes to changes in gas al­lo­ca­tion poli­cies im­ple­ment­ed by NGC.

“The board at NGC has se­ri­ous le­gal ques­tions to an­swer, as in a few short months un­der their tenure, ma­jor pe­tro­le­um chem­i­cal com­pa­nies at Point Lisas have shut down and are in­di­cat­ing fur­ther shut­downs, which are due to the change in gas al­lo­ca­tion poli­cies at NGC. These de­ci­sions will be sub­ject to le­gal fidu­cia­ry scruti­ny of the board and man­age­ment at NGC,” Young said.

He fur­ther ques­tioned the over­all out­come of the Gov­ern­ment’s cur­rent ap­proach to en­er­gy sec­tor man­age­ment, ask­ing who ul­ti­mate­ly ben­e­fits from the pol­i­cy di­rec­tion be­ing pur­sued.