PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar says her government will restart the state-owned Petrotrin oil refinery that had been shut down by the Keith Rowley administration in 2018 because of outstanding debts totalling billions of dollars.
Oil refinery in south Trinidad (File Photo)“My government will restart the refinery,” she said in a statement posted on X, after indicating that she had received the “Interim Report of the Refinery Restart Committee”, led by former energy minister Kevin Ramnarine, earlier this week.
She said that the “findings are clear: restarting the Guaracara Refinery is technically, commercially and financially viable even after seven years of closure and neglect”.
According to the prime minister, the “Committee confirms -Newer GOP plants remain in good condition, Time is of the essence as further deterioration could make a restart uneconomic, The ULSD plant is critical to capturing strong regional demand”.
She said that a “restart will create major jobs, contractor opportunities, foreign exchange, and revitalise fenceline communities. Trinidad & Tobago can once again become a leading regional supplier of refined products.
I have directed the Ministry of Energy to evaluate the Report and present the best restart options for Cabinet consideration.
“The Guaracara Refinery is a national asset with enormous potential for economic growth, employment, and energy security. A final feasibility and restart recommendation will be submitted early in 2026,” she added.
In March this year, the Rowley administration said that it had accepted the recommendation of an evaluation committee that recommended Oando PLC, one of Africa’s largest integrated energy solutions providers, as the preferred bidder for the lease of the Guaracara refinery.
The government said that the was based mainly on Oando’s strong financial track record, particularly its US$1.5 billion acquisition of ConocoPhillips’ assets in Nigeria.
The evaluation committee noted that Oando and the CRO Consortium—comprising three Trinidadian companies and INCA Energy, an American company—had similar capabilities in operating refineries. Still, Oando’s ability to secure substantial financing in the upstream oil sector gave it an advantage.
Trinidad Petroleum Holdings Limited (TPHL) owns Guaracara Refining Company Ltd, which operates the country’s only petroleum refinery. It also owns the Paria Fuel Trading Company subsidiary, which imports refined petroleum products and stores and distributes them domestically.
The government said then that in its discussions with the evaluation committee that “we have to protect the assets of Paria also always to ensure that we can provide domestic fuel to our population and to make sure that anybody interested in restarting the refinery doesn’t just take Paria’s assets.”
A statement from the Office of the Prime Minister on Friday, said that the submission of the interim report is in keeping with the Committee’s Terms of Reference (TOR) which mandates the submission of the Interim Report within four (4) months of its effective start date of Committee deliberations.
“The Committee held eleven (11) meetings, reviewed numerous documents on the refinery’s operations and financials pre closure, its preservation post closure, received presentations from experts, developed models for cost and economic evaluations and conducted visits to the refinery at Pointe-à-Pierre to inspect the conditions of these assets.”
According to the statement, the Committee was tasked with, inter alia, reviewing the technical assessment and readiness of the Refinery, as well as its infrastructure and utilities and developing a plan for its restart within the earliest timeframe.
“The Interim Report examines the technical commercial feasibility, estimated capital requirements and human resource demands of a possible approach to the restart of the Guaracara Refinery. The Prime Minister considers the health and safety framework of paramount importance as any restart must meet rigorous health and safety protocols to ensure the protection of human life, environment and assets.
“The Interim Report notes that despite its closure seven years ago, the restart of the Refinery is technically, commercially and financially viable given the current market demands for refined products and crude availability. The closure of the Refinery for seven years has led to degradation of the units and supporting utilities and offsites.
“However, the Committee concluded that the newer plants which were part of the Gasoline Optimization Programme (GOP) were in relatively good condition. The Committee also concluded that time was of the essence as further deterioration of the units and supporting utilities would eventually render a restart un-economic. ”
The statement said that the report recommends four phases to the restart process based on favorable economics, ease of repairs, availability of resources and availability of capital expenditure.
“The report also identifies the significance of remedial works on the new Ultra Low Sulphur Diesel (ULSD) plant which has not been commissioned, but which is important to Refinery economics given the regional and extra-regional demand for ULSD and the move to increasingly stringent sulphur specifications in refined products.
“The report notes that restarting the Refinery will create significant direct and indirect jobs and local-contractor opportunities and generate foreign exchange, thereby stimulating the national economy with benefits for the fenceline communities that once supported the Refinery’s operations. A reactivation will also reposition Trinidad and Tobago as a major regional supplier of refined products as well as strengthen regional energy security and resilience.
“The Committee noted that in the year of closure 2018, the refinery was making an operating profit,” the report added.
When the refinery was closed in 2018, the then finance minister Colm Imbert said the cost of upgrading the refinery would have loaded the company with an unsustainable debt burden estimated at TT$12 billion (One TT dollar=US$0.16 cents) of which TT$5.780 billion is due in August 2019.
“While the company continued to incur persistent losses, the gasoline optimisation programme saw its cost rise from TT$2.45 billion in 2005 to TT$12.6 billion when it was completed in 2013, the cost of the unfinished gas-to-liquids plant rose from TT$1.55 billion to TT$3.15 billion and that the cost of the ultra-low sulphur diesel complex rose from TT$791 million to $2.89 billion “
He said while the project is 98 per cent mechanically completed, it cannot be operated because the structural specifications were not followed, meaning that the foundation is faulty and cannot be used. It would take TT$2.5 billion to rectify the defects, Imbert added.
