Eu­gene Tiah

Good re­sults in­fre­quent­ly get achieved with no process or a very flawed process. How­ev­er good re­sults of­ten­times are the re­sult of a good process. If we want a high con­fi­dence lev­el that we will get a good re­sult, it is a no brain­er that we must have a good process.

The Gov­ern­ment’s man­i­festo pro­vides a com­mit­ment which, in brief, is to restart a re­formed oil re­fin­ery to re­gain fu­el se­cu­ri­ty. To date re­view work was com­plet­ed by the Ram­nar­ine Com­mit­tee and an in­ter­im re­port was sub­mit­ted to the Gov­ern­ment on De­cem­ber 4, 2025, with the fi­nal re­port ex­pect­ed in ear­ly 2026. It is not clear whether that fi­nal re­port has been com­plet­ed.

As stat­ed in the news­pa­per based on a re­lease from the Prime Min­is­ter’s Of­fice on De­cem­ber 2026, the re­fin­ery restart is tech­ni­cal­ly, com­mer­cial­ly and fi­nan­cial­ly vi­able “giv­en the cur­rent mar­ket de­mands for re­fined prod­ucts and crude avail­abil­i­ty.” https://news­day.co.tt/2025/12/06/gov­ern­ment-re­ceives-in­ter­im-re­port-on-pos­si­ble-restart-of-oil-re­fin­ery/

Since that re­lease the Min­is­ter of En­er­gy at­tend­ed En­er­gy Week in In­dia in Jan­u­ary 2026 and met with in­ter­est­ed en­ti­ties who have con­sid­er­able ex­pe­ri­ence in own­ing and op­er­at­ing re­finer­ies. A T&T Guardian news­pa­per ar­ti­cle on March 22, stat­ed that the Min­is­ter of En­er­gy re­vealed ne­go­ti­a­tions are un­der­way with sev­er­al ma­jor play­ers, in­clud­ing Chevron of the Unit­ed States, the Na­tion­al Chi­na Off­shore Oil Cor­po­ra­tion, Nige­ria-based Oan­do, In­di­an Oil Cor­po­ra­tion and the Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union’s Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies and Tech­nolo­gies, which has sub­mit­ted a new pro­pos­al for con­sid­er­a­tion.

The ar­ti­cle fur­ther stat­ed quot­ed the Min­is­ter of En­er­gy, “We have been hap­pi­ly and kind­ly over­whelmed by ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est in the re­fin­ery from com­pa­nies near and far, do­mes­tic, lo­cal com­pa­nies, as well as im­por­tant ac­tors in Eu­rope, in Africa, from Asia, from the Caribbean and at home here.”

Clar­i­ty on the process and who is lead­ing the process for restart­ing the Guaracara Re­fin­ery re­mains cloud­ed in mys­tery.

The Of­fice of Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment pro­vides very use­ful guid­ance for trans­paren­cy, in­tegri­ty and good gov­er­nance in its pub­li­ca­tion—Pro­cure­ment Meth­ods and Pro­ce­dures. If we ap­ply the meth­ods and pro­ce­dures, the fol­low­ing ques­tions/com­ments on the process to restart the Guaracara Re­fin­ery come in­to fo­cus:

1) Com­pet­i­tive or Sole Se­lect — Is it a com­pet­i­tive process, or a sole se­lect process and what is the ba­sis for choos­ing one ver­sus the next?

If it is go­ing to be a com­pet­i­tive process, then there should be a process of is­su­ing a re­quest for pro­pos­als (RFP) from iden­ti­fied and in­ter­est­ed ca­pa­ble en­ti­ties. Through a for­mal or in­for­mal process, has a list of in­ter­est­ed ca­pa­ble par­ties been de­vel­oped? Has the RFP been de­vel­oped and is­sued and if so, what is the clos­ing date for re­ceiv­ing pro­pos­als? A com­pre­hen­sive RFP pack­age with the re­quired tech­ni­cal and oth­er com­mer­cial in­for­ma­tion could take many months to de­vel­op and will re­quire a spe­cialised team to do the work. Per­haps this was al­ready done when the pre­vi­ous Gov­ern­ment com­plet­ed its RFP process. With some­thing as com­plex as the re­fin­ery and giv­en the length of time the re­fin­ery has been idled, it is not atyp­i­cal to al­low many months for in­ter­est­ed par­ties to per­form the re­quired as­sess­ments to pro­vide a de­cent pro­pos­al;

2) Sole Se­lect Process — There are clear­ly iden­ti­fied con­di­tions un­der which a sole se­lect process can be un­der­tak­en, for ex­am­ple for very low-val­ue, ur­gent or emer­gency pro­cure­ments. It seems un­like­ly in this case that a sole se­lect process is ap­pro­pri­ate par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en the wide­spread in­ter­est that has been ex­pressed.

Re­gard­ing the RFP process, there are some very im­por­tant con­sid­er­a­tions, which if not al­ready ad­dressed, need to be ad­dressed in any is­sued RFP pack­age as cap­tured in ear­ly ar­ti­cles in the T&T Guardian:

• Util­i­ties — The op­por­tu­ni­ty cost of the re­fin­ery’s nat­ur­al gas, elec­tric­i­ty and wa­ter sup­plies and re­li­a­bil­i­ty of these sup­plies on the re­fin­ery per­for­mance. Pre­vi­ous­ly Petrotrin en­joyed sub­sidised prices on all the util­i­ties it used. Will sub­si­dies still be pro­vid­ed and who is go­ing to bear those costs?

• Im­pacts to Her­itage and Paria — Both Her­itage and Paria are cur­rent­ly gen­er­at­ing prof­its which are be­ing used to re­pay the prin­ci­pal and the in­ter­est on the for­mer Petrotrin US$850 mil­lion bond. If the re­fin­ery is restart­ed, will these prof­itabil­i­ty en­ti­ties be neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed and if so, what hap­pens?

• En­vi­ron­men­tal con­sid­er­a­tions — Who will be re­spon­si­ble for lega­cy en­vi­ron­men­tal li­a­bil­i­ties and how will fu­ture li­a­bil­i­ties be de­lin­eat­ed and ad­dressed?

• Safe op­er­a­tions — As­sur­ing safe op­er­a­tions for a restart­ed re­fin­ery is go­ing to be of para­mount im­por­tance. As a re­fin­ery restart most like­ly will be phased, there will be mul­ti­ple work fronts con­cur­rent­ly on the var­i­ous util­i­ties and process plants at dif­fer­ent stages of the restora­tion, com­mis­sion­ing, and op­er­a­tions cy­cle.

Ef­fi­cient sched­ul­ing and ef­fec­tive co­or­di­na­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tions across the site will be crit­i­cal for a safe and suc­cess­ful restart. This re­quires strong lead­er­ship, a ro­bust process safe­ty cul­ture, strong sys­tems and process­es and trained and com­pe­tent peo­ple. Do we still have the com­pe­tent hu­man re­sources avail­able, and will any po­ten­tial in­vestors pro­vide the crit­i­cal re­sources to as­sure safe op­er­a­tions?

• Iso-bu­tane avail­abil­i­ty — Pri­or to shut down of the re­fin­ery, iso-bu­tane was pro­vid­ed by PPG­PL. Since that time there has been a con­tin­ued re­duc­tion in the pro­duc­tion of nat­ur­al gas liq­uids by PPG­PL due to a com­bi­na­tion of low­er nat­ur­al gas vol­umes for pro­cess­ing and the liq­uid con­tent of the nat­ur­al gas. Is there suf­fi­cient iso-bu­tane to meet the needs of the Alky­la­tion Unit or would there be a need to im­port sup­ple­men­tal sup­plies of iso-bu­tane?

• Union­i­sa­tion — Will it be a re­quire­ment for any in­ter­est­ed par­ty to have the OW­TU as the con­tin­u­ing, recog­nised ma­jor­i­ty union and sole col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agent?

The pass­ing of the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um, Paria Fu­el Trad­ing and Guaracara Re­fin­ing Vest­ing) (Amend­ment) Bill in par­lia­ment seems to sug­gest that is the case. That cer­tain­ly can im­pact on bid­ders’ in­ter­est.

Fi­nal­ly, the work­stream for de­vel­op­ing the RFP and man­ag­ing that process re­quires a team of ded­i­cat­ed re­sources. Who is man­ag­ing that process? Is it Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings Lim­it­ed (TPHL) or the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries, or some oth­er en­ti­ty?

We are now at mid-year of 2026 and giv­en the lim­it­ed in­for­ma­tion on the progress to date, it is hard to imag­ine that an RFP process could be com­plet­ed be­fore the end of cal­en­dar year 2026. Giv­en the im­mense com­plex­i­ty even with a suc­cess­ful RFP process where an en­ti­ty is se­lect­ed there could be very many months of ne­go­ti­a­tions to ar­rive at a fi­nal ex­e­cut­ed agree­ment. At best as­sum­ing there is in­deed in­ter­est by prospec­tive bid­ders and there is a team in place to ex­e­cute this work, the ear­li­est we can ex­pect the ex­e­cu­tion of an agree­ment is mid-2027.

As­sum­ing a restart of the re­fin­ery two years lat­er the ear­li­est a restart could take place is June 2029. What cer­tain­ly would be help­ful to the pop­u­la­tion is a clear ar­tic­u­la­tion of the process and ex­pect­ed time­lines.

Eu­gene Tiah is an en­gi­neer, who spent his ca­reer work­ing in the down­stream en­er­gy sec­tor in Trinidad and the US.