An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

About 100 em­ploy­ees have been re­trenched by Pro­man Trinidad fol­low­ing a nine per cent re­duc­tion in its lo­cal work­force, deep­en­ing con­cerns about em­ploy­ment, in­vest­ment and the fu­ture of the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate.

The re­trench­ment ex­er­cise was com­plet­ed yes­ter­day, af­ter af­fect­ed work­ers re­ceived sep­a­ra­tion let­ters. Re­main­ing em­ploy­ees were in­formed by email lat­er in the day that the process had con­clud­ed.

In a re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia, Pro­man Trinidad said the re­duc­tion formed part of a glob­al or­gan­i­sa­tion­al align­ment ini­tia­tive. The com­pa­ny said all af­fect­ed em­ploy­ees had been no­ti­fied and sup­port ser­vices re­main avail­able to those leav­ing and those re­main­ing with the busi­ness.

The job cuts come as Trinidad and To­ba­go’s en­er­gy sec­tor faces in­creas­ing pres­sure from re­duced gas avail­abil­i­ty. An­oth­er com­pa­ny, Nu­trien, al­so an­nounced an in­def­i­nite shut­down of its ni­tro­gen op­er­a­tions on Mon­day, while un­cer­tain­ty al­so sur­rounds em­ploy­ment at Methanex’s Ti­tan methanol plant.

One of the largest ten­ants at the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate, Pro­man in­formed af­fect­ed work­ers that their po­si­tions had been de­clared sur­plus fol­low­ing con­sul­ta­tions on Sep­tem­ber 25 and Oc­to­ber 5.

In re­trench­ment let­ters yes­ter­day, the com­pa­ny said the de­ci­sion was nec­es­sary to align its cost struc­ture, staffing lev­els and op­er­at­ing mod­el with cur­rent pro­duc­tion lev­els and pre­vail­ing busi­ness re­al­i­ties, both lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. It al­so ref­er­enced the pe­ri­od pro­vid­ed for em­ploy­ee feed­back fol­low­ing the ini­tial con­sul­ta­tions.

Pro­man ad­vised em­ploy­ees that no suit­able al­ter­na­tive po­si­tions could be iden­ti­fied with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion and said the re­trench­ment process would fol­low the prin­ci­ple of “Last In, First Out.”

Af­fect­ed work­ers will re­ceive 45 days’ no­tice, with No­vem­ber 23, 2026, des­ig­nat­ed as their fi­nal day of em­ploy­ment. Em­ploy­ees will not be re­quired to re­port to work dur­ing the no­tice pe­ri­od.

Sev­er­ance pack­age and ben­e­fits

The com­pa­ny out­lined en­hanced sev­er­ance terms based on to­tal guar­an­teed cash earn­ings and years of ser­vice.

Em­ploy­ees with more than one year but less than five years of ser­vice will re­ceive 0.75 months’ pay for each com­plet­ed year of ser­vice. Those with five years or more will re­ceive one month’s salary for each year of ser­vice.

Pay­ments will re­main sub­ject to ap­plic­a­ble PAYE re­quire­ments and statu­to­ry de­duc­tions, with out­stand­ing amounts to be paid fol­low­ing ap­proval by the Board of In­land Rev­enue. Earn­ings up to Oc­to­ber 9 will be processed through the nor­mal pay­roll cy­cle.

Pro­man has al­so ex­tend­ed group health cov­er­age for af­fect­ed em­ploy­ees and their de­pen­dants un­til De­cem­ber 31.

For­mer En­er­gy and Fi­nance min­is­ter Con­rad Enill yes­ter­day de­scribed the re­trench­ments as part of an ad­just­ment pe­ri­od in which busi­ness­es must adapt to avail­able re­sources and rev­enue streams.

He said the con­trac­tion of the en­er­gy sec­tor ex­tends be­yond in­di­vid­ual com­pa­nies and could ul­ti­mate­ly af­fect gov­ern­ment rev­enues de­posit­ed in­to the Con­sol­i­dat­ed Fund.

“We are go­ing to have to make ad­just­ments based on new rev­enues or less rev­enues that will be avail­able for us,” Enill said.

He cau­tioned against at­tribut­ing the lay­offs sole­ly to nat­ur­al gas sup­ply is­sues, ar­gu­ing that com­pa­nies must al­so con­sid­er the cost of ac­quir­ing gas and broad­er mar­ket con­di­tions.

The Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny pur­chas­es nat­ur­al gas be­fore sell­ing it to cus­tomers, mak­ing ac­qui­si­tion costs a key con­sid­er­a­tion in com­mer­cial de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

“I don’t know that it’s a gas is­sue. I think that it is a mar­ket is­sue, and it’s like every oth­er busi­ness. It is what is hap­pen­ing at this point,” Enill said.

He al­so warned that staff re­duc­tions do not nec­es­sar­i­ly mean a com­pa­ny will be less prof­itable or con­tribute less tax rev­enue.

“For ex­am­ple, if Pro­man re­duces its em­ploy­ee cost, does that mean that it is less prof­itable? Maybe not. So it means the tax­es to the gov­ern­ment may be the same; how­ev­er, the em­ploy­ment may be dif­fer­ent,” he said.

How­ev­er, Cou­va/Point Lisas Cham­ber of Com­merce first vice-pres­i­dent Amit Dass said the loss of around 100 well-paid jobs would have sig­nif­i­cant con­se­quences for work­ers, fam­i­lies and busi­ness­es be­yond the in­dus­tri­al es­tate.

“The in­dus­tri­al es­tate, 100 staff cuts, is con­cern­ing be­cause those are high-pay­ing jobs. And un­til we get more gas in­to the sys­tem, those jobs won’t be com­ing back,” Dass said.

He said the ef­fects would rip­ple through­out the econ­o­my, re­duc­ing spend­ing at su­per­mar­kets, banks and small busi­ness­es, while putting ad­di­tion­al pres­sure on house­holds with mort­gages, per­son­al loans and oth­er fi­nan­cial oblig­a­tions.

“With the con­tin­ued con­trac­tion of the econ­o­my, it is ex­pect­ed that this may con­tin­ue un­til gas can come back in­to the sys­tem. And some­thing like this af­fects all busi­ness­es, right, from big to small,” he said.

Dass al­so ex­pressed con­cern about the coun­try’s for­eign ex­change po­si­tion. While not­ing that Nu­trien’s shut­down could al­low gas to be redi­rect­ed to At­lantic LNG, gen­er­at­ing for­eign ex­change through ex­ports, he said the broad­er forex out­look re­mains trou­bling be­cause of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s heavy re­liance on im­ports.

More job loss­es feared

The cham­ber fears fur­ther job loss­es could oc­cur if gas pro­duc­tion does not im­prove. Dass called for greater col­lab­o­ra­tion among en­er­gy-sec­tor stake­hold­ers and in­creased in­vest­ment in ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion ac­tiv­i­ties.

He ar­gued that ad­di­tion­al gas sup­plies are es­sen­tial to restor­ing ac­tiv­i­ty at Point Lisas and warned that pro­duc­tion could de­cline fur­ther be­fore new fields come on stream.

The con­cerns fol­low Nu­trien’s de­ci­sion to in­def­i­nite­ly shut down its Trinidad Ni­tro­gen op­er­a­tions af­ter pro­longed chal­lenges re­lat­ed to nat­ur­al gas sup­ply and port ac­cess. The move has al­ready put about 350 con­tract work­ers out of work, while un­cer­tain­ty re­mains over the fu­ture of its per­ma­nent staff.

Mean­while, Methanex’s Ti­tan methanol plant has been idled fol­low­ing the ex­pi­ra­tion of its gas sup­ply con­tract, with work­ers fac­ing fur­ther un­cer­tain­ty ahead of No­vem­ber 6.

Dass said the cham­ber hopes Mon­day’s na­tion­al bud­get will in­clude sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ment in oil and gas ex­plo­ration, im­prov­ing the coun­try’s prospects for restor­ing pro­duc­tion, safe­guard­ing jobs and sup­port­ing eco­nom­ic growth.