Trinidad hoping to sell oil refinery by August

The Trinidad & Tobago government says it expects to take a decision by the end of August this year regarding the sale of the state-owned oil refinery at Point-a Pierre that it closed down in 2018 mainly due to its indebtedness.

In addition, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, speaking at an event organised by the ruling People’s National Movement in San Fernando, dismissed the assertion of Oilfields Workers Trade Union that the refinery could not be sold without their permission.

Rowley told party supporters that he expects within a month’s time that the Cabinet will put in place a team to evaluate the offers being made by those interested in running the refinery that before its shut down had been operating at a loss of about eight billion dollars in the last five years and had owed three billion dollars in taxes and royalties to the government.

“I expect that by the end of August the government will be able to say to you, yes we have a taker or no we have no taker and that will have nothing to do with these mischievous, troublemakers who believe they could talk nonsense anytime and the government will sit back and take it,” he said.

The oilworkers union, through its company, Patriotic Energies and Technologies Company Limited, had made two unsuccessful bids for the Petrotrin oil refinery.

“We will not stand idly by and allow anybody to walk in here and take over the refinery … we must be a part of going forward in the operation of that refinery,” said union president, Ancel Roget, during Labour Day celebrations in June.

However, Rowley says his administration does not need the permission of the union to make a decision the refinery.

“I hear one union leader singing calypso and in his calypso tent sending word for me to say the government will not be allowed to dispose of his refinery without his and his friends’ permission,” Rowley said at the party’s sports and family day.

“Well, I want to tell him today when you own refinery the government wouldn’t interfere with it but the refinery that is owned by the people of Trinidad & Tobago and until you are in the government or the prime minister, go and sing your calypso to your friends elsewhere and stop talking stupidness,” he said.

In 2018 when the refinery was guttered by the government, it paid out TT$2.7 billion in separation to workers. The refinery has remained unutilised since then, he said.

CMC