Cur­tis Williams

Unit­ed States Am­bas­sador to Trinidad and To­ba­go Beat­rice Wilkin­son Wel­ters has writ­ten to the Gov­ern­ment, rais­ing con­cerns about the Gov­ern­ment's pro­pos­al to award two projects worth US$5.3 bil­lion to a con­sor­tium led by the Sau­di Ara­bia's state com­pa­ny SABIC. The am­bas­sador's let­ter fol­lowed ma­jor ob­jec­tions raised by US in­ter­ests that they were un­fair­ly by­passed in favour of the Saud­is in what is an in­creas­ing­ly con­tro­ver­sial project. Well placed sources at the Min­istry of En­er­gy said last Thurs­day that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar or­dered that the Cab­i­net not award the project un­til the Gov­ern­ment was able to re­spond to the US Am­bas­sador and this led to the de­ci­sion be­ing de­ferred to to­day.

In an e-mailed re­sponse to queries from the T&T Guardian, the US Em­bassy con­firmed rais­ing the is­sue of the methanol to petro­chem­i­cal projects with the Gov­ern­ment. It wrote: "We have con­tact­ed the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go re­gard­ing pro­posed petro­chem­i­cal projects. The Unit­ed States en­joys a ro­bust com­mer­cial re­la­tion­ship with Trinidad and To­ba­go "Many US-based com­pa­nies are in­ter­est­ed in do­ing busi­ness in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and US firms have played key roles in help­ing de­vel­op the en­er­gy sec­tor here, bring­ing in­no­v­a­tive tech­nol­o­gy and fi­nanc­ing to new in­dus­tries. "Part of the em­bassy's func­tion is to com­mu­ni­cate with the Gov­ern­ment re­gard­ing both eco­nom­ic trends and spe­cif­ic com­mer­cial op­por­tu­ni­ties in both coun­tries, and we feel that we main­tain a sol­id and hon­est re­la­tion­ship with many Min­is­ters in that re­gard."

The project has been in­creas­ing­ly mired in con­tro­ver­sy with ma­jor dis­agree­ments be­tween for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad Bachan and her re­place­ment Kevin Ram­nar­ine over the price the Saud­is were propos­ing to pay for nat­ur­al gas. It has been fur­ther re­vealed that the plants will not be built in La Brea but they have been moved to Point Lisas. Now come al­le­ga­tions of a flawed process. While the US Em­bassy did not re­spond di­rect­ly to the ques­tion if it was sat­is­fied with the Gov­ern­ment's re­sponse to the is­sue, it said: "Busi­ness fa­cil­i­ta­tion is a key func­tion of any diplo­mat­ic mis­sion. "And like our coun­ter­parts from oth­er coun­tries, the US Em­bassy in Port-of- Spain works to en­sure that Amer­i­can firms are aware of the busi­ness cli­mate and of busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and that they have equal and fair ac­cess to bid­ding op­por­tu­ni­ties," the em­bassy said.

"In the nor­mal course of busi­ness, the am­bas­sador will oc­ca­sion­al­ly in­quire about Gov­ern­ment poli­cies and process­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly if there is in­ter­est in a spe­cif­ic project by one or more US firms." The Guardian has been told that US firms have con­tend­ed that the Saud­is were not part of the ear­ly process. Min­utes from the tech­ni­cal meet­ings in which the in­ter­est­ed par­ties were all ex­pect­ed to be present in­di­cat­ed no ref­er­ence to SABIC be­ing in the meet­ings. The min­utes show Celanese Cor­po­ra­tion Head­quar­ters, Methanex Trinidad Ltd, Chemtech Ltd, Methanol Hold­ings, Gal (In­dia) Lim­it­ed, Mit­sui and Co. USA, Inc, In­te­grat­ed Chem­i­cals Co. Ltd all be­ing present and one Mr John Blieszn­er. Sources on the eval­u­a­tion team at the min­istry told the T&T Guardian that SABIC was at the meet­ing but nev­er iden­ti­fied them­selves. They in­sist that the process was above board and that the Saud­is won the deal fair and square.

The pro­pos­al by the Sau­di Ara­bia's state-owned com­pa­ny, Sau­di Ba­sic In­dus­tries Cor­po­ra­tion (SABIC), to build a methanol to petro­chem­i­cals com­plex and a methanol to Olefins plant will use more an a quar­ter bil­lion cu­bic feet of nat­ur­al gas a day. If ap­proved, the plant will be con­struct­ed at a time when there is a short­age of nat­ur­al gas and when plants on the Point Lisas es­tate are op­er­a­tion at a whop­ping 30 per cent cur­tail­ment. The SABIC project does not in­clude the con­struc­tion of an acetic acid plant con­sid­ered a key part in the strat­e­gy to make the coun­try en­ter in­to the man­u­fac­ture of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. It is ex­pect­ed that the Cab­i­net will for a fourth week con­sid­er the mat­ter to­day to de­cide if it should sign off on the deal.