Pro­man Trinidad has an­nounced that it will tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend op­er­a­tions at its melamine plant in Point Lisas for an ini­tial two-year pe­ri­od, cit­ing con­tin­ued un­favourable glob­al mar­ket con­di­tions.

In a news re­lease, the com­pa­ny ex­plained that the de­ci­sion fol­lows a de­tailed re­view of in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket dy­nam­ics and is in­tend­ed to safe­guard the long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty and ef­fi­cien­cy of its op­er­a­tions in T&T.

The move comes one year af­ter the Unit­ed States In­ter­na­tion­al Trade Com­mis­sion im­posed steep an­ti-dump­ing and coun­ter­vail­ing du­ties of 154.28 per cent on melamine im­ports from Trinidad and To­ba­go and oth­er coun­tries.

Those du­ties, in­tro­duced in Jan­u­ary 2025, com­bined with per­sis­tent glob­al price pres­sures, have made the con­tin­ued pro­duc­tion of melamine eco­nom­i­cal­ly un­vi­able.

Pro­man em­pha­sised that the pause is a strate­gic re­sponse to these chal­lenges rather than a per­ma­nent clo­sure, and that it will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor mar­ket con­di­tions to as­sess the fea­si­bil­i­ty of re­sum­ing pro­duc­tion in the fu­ture.

While pro­duc­tion at the melamine plant would be halt­ed, Pro­man un­der­scored its com­mit­ment to em­ploy­ees and lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties.

Of the 89 work­ers po­ten­tial­ly af­fect­ed, the vast ma­jor­i­ty would be re­de­ployed to oth­er plants, projects and roles across the com­pa­ny’s op­er­a­tions. Staff will al­so have ac­cess to train­ing and re­sources to sup­port their tran­si­tion.

For the small num­ber of em­ploy­ees who can­not be re­de­ployed, Pro­man pledged to pro­vide full out­place­ment sup­port, ac­cess to its Em­ploy­ee As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (EPA) and statu­to­ry ben­e­fits, en­sur­ing that all are treat­ed with dig­ni­ty and re­spect dur­ing the process.

Pro­man Trinidad’s ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, Anand Rag­bir, stressed the com­pa­ny’s long-stand­ing role in the na­tion­al en­er­gy sec­tor and its on­go­ing com­mit­ment to the coun­try.

“We do not take these de­ci­sions light­ly. Pro­man has been a key con­trib­u­tor to the Trinidad and To­ba­go en­er­gy sec­tor for over 35 years, and we will con­tin­ue to in­vest in our op­er­a­tions, our peo­ple, and our lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties. This de­ci­sion does not af­fect the pro­duc­tion or op­er­a­tions of our oth­er plants in Trinidad,” Rag­bir said.

Look­ing ahead, Pro­man con­firmed that it would con­tin­ue to eval­u­ate glob­al mar­ket con­di­tions and ex­plore op­por­tu­ni­ties to restart melamine pro­duc­tion if cir­cum­stances im­prove. In the mean­time, the com­pa­ny re­mains fo­cused on strength­en­ing its core op­er­a­tions and en­sur­ing long-term com­pet­i­tive­ness, re­in­forc­ing its pledge to re­main a cen­tral play­er in T&T’s en­er­gy land­scape.

Pro­man’s dis­clo­sure of the shut­down of its melamine plant comes less than three months af­ter Cana­di­an fer­tilis­er pro­duc­er, Nu­trien, an­nounced the con­trolled shut­down of its am­mo­nia and urea plants on the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate.

When con­tact­ed for com­ment, Min­is­ter of En­er­gy Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said the de­ci­sion re­flects dif­fi­cult mar­ket con­di­tions af­fect­ing the glob­al melamine trade.

“It is clear that this is an is­sue aris­ing from chal­leng­ing mar­ket cir­cum­stances. I am aware that Pro­man has been seek­ing al­ter­na­tive mar­kets for melamine, but the glob­al en­vi­ron­ment is ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult. In the short term, the com­pa­ny has tak­en a de­ci­sion to pause pro­duc­tion,” Mooni­lal said.

He added that com­pa­nies must con­tin­u­al­ly as­sess what is re­quired to en­sure long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

Mooni­lal said the ma­jor­i­ty of em­ploy­ees will be re­tained and re­de­ployed, which he de­scribed as a pos­i­tive out­come.

He al­so not­ed that the mat­ter first arose in Jan­u­ary 2025 and that the for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter was made aware of the sit­u­a­tion at that time.

What is melamine?

Melamine is a ni­tro­gen-rich or­gan­ic com­pound com­mon­ly used in the pro­duc­tion of var­i­ous prod­ucts, in­clud­ing table­ware, lam­i­nate floor­ing, and cab­i­netry. It is a colour­less crys­talline sub­stance that serves as a start­ing ma­te­r­i­al for syn­thet­ic resins, mak­ing it ver­sa­tile in in­dus­tri­al ap­pli­ca­tions.