Ke­jan Haynes

Lead ed­i­tor - news­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

Glob­al fer­tilis­er gi­ant Nu­trien ap­pears to be mov­ing ahead with plans cen­tred on its North Amer­i­can op­er­a­tions while keep­ing its shut­tered Trinidad ni­tro­gen fa­cil­i­ty un­der strate­gic re­view, months af­ter halt­ing pro­duc­tion at Point Lisas.

In its first quar­ter 2026 fi­nan­cial re­port, re­leased on May 6, the Cana­di­an com­pa­ny con­firmed there has been “no pro­duc­tion from the Trinidad and New Madrid fa­cil­i­ties” fol­low­ing the con­trolled shut­down of the its fa­cil­i­ty at the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate on Oc­to­ber 23, 2025.

The com­pa­ny said it is “pro­gress­ing as planned with the re­view of strate­gic al­ter­na­tives for our phos­phate busi­ness, Trinidad ni­tro­gen fa­cil­i­ty and Brazil­ian re­tail busi­ness with a fo­cus on en­hanc­ing earn­ings qual­i­ty and free cash flow.”

While Nu­trien did not spec­i­fy what those strate­gic al­ter­na­tives in­volve, the lan­guage sug­gests the com­pa­ny is ac­tive­ly as­sess­ing the fu­ture of the Trinidad as­set as part of a wider re­struc­tur­ing ef­fort.

Such re­views of­ten in­clude pos­si­ble sales, part­ner­ships, re­struc­tur­ing, as­set op­ti­mi­sa­tion or clo­sure.

Nu­trien’s prof­its in­creased sub­stan­tial­ly in the first quar­ter of 2026, with net earn­ings ris­ing to US$139 mil­lion from US$19 mil­lion in the same pe­ri­od of 2025. The com­pa­ny said this growth was dri­ven by record potash sales vol­umes, high­er fer­tilis­er prices and strong per­for­mance in its ni­tro­gen and re­tail seg­ments.

Pres­i­dent and CEO Ken Seitz sig­nalled the com­pa­ny’s fo­cus is now on con­cen­trat­ing in­vest­ment in op­er­a­tions it con­sid­ers more com­pet­i­tive and ef­fi­cient.

“We in­creased pro­duc­tion from our low-cost North Amer­i­can as­sets and po­si­tioned our sup­ply chain to re­li­ably sup­ply our cus­tomers amid tight­en­ing glob­al fer­tilis­er sup­ply and de­mand fun­da­men­tals,” Seitz said.

He added: “We con­tin­ue to take pur­pose­ful steps to sim­pli­fy the busi­ness, strength­en and grow our core as­set base and im­prove cap­i­tal ef­fi­cien­cy, re­sult­ing in a more re­silient port­fo­lio and de­liv­er­ing struc­tur­al free cash flow growth.”

De­spite the Trinidad shut­down, Nu­trien main­tained its 2026 ni­tro­gen sales guid­ance of be­tween 9.2 and 9.7 mil­lion tonnes, say­ing the out­look is sup­port­ed by “planned re­li­a­bil­i­ty im­prove­ments and de­bot­tle­necks.”

The com­pa­ny al­so plans be­tween US$2 bil­lion and US$2.1 bil­lion in cap­i­tal ex­pen­di­ture this year, in­clud­ing around US$400 mil­lion for “low-cost brown­field ex­pan­sions and prod­uct op­ti­mi­sa­tion projects in ni­tro­gen.”

There was no in­di­ca­tion if any of that in­vest­ment would be di­rect­ed to­ward restart­ing the Trinidad op­er­a­tion.

Ques­tions over the fu­ture of the Point Lisas fa­cil­i­ty have been cir­cu­lat­ing for months.

On April 9, for­mer prime min­is­ter and for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young ques­tioned whether Nu­trien was prepar­ing to sell its phys­i­cal as­sets in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Speak­ing at a news con­fer­ence, Young said in­for­ma­tion reach­ing him sug­gest­ed the com­pa­ny’s Point Lisas fa­cil­i­ty may be up for sale.

“Has the Nu­trien group of plants at Point Lisas been put up for sale, with RBC be­ing re­tained to see if they find a pur­chas­er?” he asked.

He de­scribed the pos­si­bil­i­ty as “a dis­as­ter for Trinidad and To­ba­go,” warn­ing the fall­out would ex­tend be­yond plant work­ers.

“It is not on­ly about the plants…it is the ecosys­tem…those who sup­ply jan­i­to­r­i­al ser­vices, se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices, food ser­vices… it is go­ing to be hun­dreds and hun­dreds of jobs,” Young said.

At the time, Nu­trien’s man­ag­er of Gov­ern­ment and In­dus­try Af­fairs, Nneka Men­tore, told Guardian Me­dia: “Fol­low­ing a con­trolled shut­down in Oc­to­ber, our ni­tro­gen op­er­a­tions re­main shut down. We have main­tained all 322 full-time em­ploy­ee po­si­tions and are in on­go­ing di­a­logue with the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny. All op­tions re­main un­der con­sid­er­a­tion.”

In­dus­try sources have al­so raised the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a sale, in­clud­ing sug­ges­tions Gov­ern­ment could at­tempt to ac­quire the as­sets, though no of­fi­cial pro­pos­al has been an­nounced.

The com­pa­ny’s op­er­a­tions have re­mained in lim­bo since the end of 2025 af­ter its gas sup­ply arrange­ments ex­pired amid a dis­pute with the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny over sup­ply terms and out­stand­ing fees.

Al­though pro­duc­tion re­mains halt­ed, em­ploy­ees have con­tin­ued re­port­ing to work while main­te­nance ac­tiv­i­ties con­tin­ue to keep the fa­cil­i­ty op­er­a­tional.

Sources pre­vi­ous­ly es­ti­mat­ed the com­pa­ny has been spend­ing rough­ly US$2 mil­lion per month to re­tain staff and pre­serve the plant while dis­cus­sions con­tin­ue.