For­mer min­is­ter of en­er­gy, Kevin Ram­nar­ine, is wor­ried that Ni­Quan En­er­gy Ltd’s (Ni­Quan) fi­nan­cial and op­er­a­tional is­sues will have a mas­sive trick­le-down im­pact, which will see hun­dreds, on the bread­line.

The com­pa­ny’s Point-a-Pierre Gas to Liq­uid plant is now of­fline as Gov­ern­ment, through the T&T Up­stream Down­stream En­er­gy Op­er­a­tions Com­pa­ny Ltd (TTUDEO­CL), ter­mi­nat­ed its con­tract with the com­pa­ny and cut off its sup­ply of nat­ur­al gas over an un­paid debt of around US$21 mil­lion.

And, with the fu­ture of the com­pa­ny now in lim­bo, Ram­nar­ine is con­cerned that this could lead to un­em­ploy­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly in a re­gion of the coun­try that has al­ready been hard hit by dis­rup­tions in the en­er­gy sec­tor.

“My re­al con­cern here is the con­trac­tors who are owed, par­tic­u­lar­ly those who sup­port thou­sands of jobs in South Trinidad around the en­er­gy sec­tor. It is go­ing to be heart­break­ing for some of them to lose the mon­ey which they have put out in pro­vid­ing ser­vices for this par­tic­u­lar plant,” Ram­nar­ine posit­ed.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew, Ram­nar­ine added that banks and in­vestors are al­so at risk.

“This plant presents a sig­nif­i­cant prob­lem for those who in­vest­ed or those who are bond­hold­ers re­lat­ed to this par­tic­u­lar plant and if you have been fol­low­ing what the Guardian has been pub­lish­ing on this par­tic­u­lar sub­ject, some of the banks are ex­posed to the po­ten­tial li­a­bil­i­ty from this project, one cred­it union might be in­volved and in­sur­ance com­pa­nies are al­so in­volved,” Ram­nar­ine said.

“Banks los­ing mon­ey is al­ways a con­cern,” Ram­nar­ine warned.

How­ev­er, he be­lieves this will not be a re­peat of the Cli­co fall­out.

“I don’t think it presents a Cli­co sce­nario where there’s a sys­temic risk, be­cause the quan­tum of mon­ey here is around US$250 mil­lion. That is nowhere in the Cli­co realm but it’s still a con­cern for those who are ar­rest­ed and who are now in lim­bo, so it is a con­cern from the point of view of those who are owed mon­ey,” Ram­nar­ine ex­plained.

But Ram­nar­ine an­tic­i­pates that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and the Gov­ern­ment will not be hap­py with the way the re­la­tion­ship has gone with Ni­Quan.

He said, “When the plant was launched in 2021, the Prime Min­is­ter him­self went down there with the Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and hailed the project as a suc­cess, so that is a dis­ap­point­ment for the Gov­ern­ment. But I don’t think the Gov­ern­ment should step in. I’m nev­er one for Gov­ern­ment in­ter­ven­tion in pri­vate af­fairs, but this plant does have an el­e­ment of it that is owned by Petrotrin, so per­haps from that point of view the Gov­ern­ment can step in there.”