For most of the last 25 years, the natural gas sector has been the mainstay of the T&T economy, providing the majority of government revenue and foreign exchange that led to a significant improvement in the country's standard of living.
The commissioning of Atlantic LNG's Train 1 in Point Fortin in 1999 certainly led the way in this country's direct monetisation of natural gas.
By that year, according to an important academic paper in 1997 by the late energy expert Trevor Boopsingh, the Point Lisas Industrial Estate was already host to four world-scale ammonia plants, three world-scale methanol plants, one urea plant and one each of an iron and steel mill, an iron carbide facility and a natural gas processing facility.
After 1997, investors completed or started additional ammonia and methanol plants in Point Lisas and the Union Industrial Estate in La Brea, to the point of establishing T&T's reputation as one of the leading exporters in the world of both commodities.
While T&T has been remarkably successful in encouraging mainly foreign investors to establish a wide range of midstream and downstream enterprises producing LNG and petrochemicals, one of the failings of what used to be known as the Trinidad model is the dearth of local capitalists stepping forward and investing money in these industries.
One of the few large local companies with an involvement in the local petrochemical sector is Massy Holdings, which purchased a stake in Caribbean Gas Chemical Ltd (CGCL), a company led by the Japanese industrial giant, Mitsubishi, that also has wholly state-owned National Gas Company as one of its equity partners.
Another example of a T&T company stepping out of its lane is the Bhagwansingh family, which processed steel products at Centrin.
Late Clico and CL Financial executive chairman of Lawrence Duprey stands out as the T&T national who saw a role for local capital in developing the country's natural resources, especially in the T&T Methanol Company. TTMC started off as a state-owned enterprise in 1984 with the TTMC 1 methanol plant. In 1994, the Government sold 31 per cent of its shareholding in TTMC to a consortium of Ferrostaal AG and Helm AG, two German companies.
Duprey, as the head of Clico Energy, was part of a consortium involving the German companies, which acquired the remaining 69 per cent of the TTMC in 1997.
TTMC became Methanol Holdings Trinidad Ltd (MHTL), which was 56.53 per cent owned by the CL Financial empire. MHTL was one of the first companies to go downstream of the petrochemicals produced at Point Lisas, when the seven-plant AUM complex at Point Lisas was commissioned in late 2009. That complex produces ammonia, urea-ammonium nitrate, fertiliser, and melamine, which is used in various applications, including laminates, resins and moulding compounds.
But Mr Duprey famously overextended his CL Financial empire in 2008, and lost control of it to the Government in 2009. The Swiss company Proman acquired MHTL from the Government as a result of an arbitration process that ended in 2014.
Given its wide range of products, the AUM complex could have been the start of a diversification thrust in T&T, with a range of value-added industrial products and companies located in T&T, based on urea-ammonium nitrate, ammonia and melamine.
The main lesson from T&T's experience with its petrochemical sector in the last 25 years is that the old Trinidad model of downstream petrochemical development is no longer fit for purpose.
The new model must envision greater involvement of the local private sector in the ownership and development of companies that look to the petrochemicals produced at Point Lisas and La Brea as the start of a new diversification thrust.
Those companies must have the full financial and diplomatic support of the entire apparatus of Government.
