Ke­jan Haynes

New­gath­er­ing Ed­i­tor

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

About 350 con­tract work­ers at Nu­trien have been sent home fol­low­ing a shut­down at its Point Lisas fa­cil­i­ty, af­ter talks be­tween the com­pa­ny and Na­tion­al En­er­gy, chaired by Ger­ald Ramdeen, reached a stale­mate.

The com­pa­ny, Guardian Me­dia has been re­li­ably in­formed, con­tin­ues to refuse to pay US$28 mil­lion in dis­put­ed fees.

Two com­pa­ny sources con­firmed the “lay offs” , say­ing con­trac­tor op­er­a­tions ceased en­tire­ly on Fri­day. Nu­trien’s full-time staff re­main em­ployed for now.

The dis­pute stems from back­dat­ed fees im­posed by Na­tion­al En­er­gy.

But the is­sue of Nu­trien’s shut­down has far-reach­ing con­se­quences even be­yond the ma­jor eco­nom­ic im­pact of job loss­es. The clo­sure has dis­rupt­ed the lo­cal sup­ply of car­bon diox­ide (CO2), a key by-prod­uct of am­mo­nia pro­duc­tion used in med­ical, in­dus­tri­al, and food-pro­cess­ing ap­pli­ca­tions.

Guardian Me­dia has reached out to the Min­istry of Health for com­ment on pos­si­ble med­ical sup­ply dis­rup­tions.

In a let­ter to cus­tomers, Massy Gas Prod­ucts said its CO2-re­lat­ed prod­ucts—in­clud­ing dry ice, cylin­ders, de­wars, and ISO tanks—would be un­avail­able from Oc­to­ber 22 “un­til fur­ther no­tice” due to Nu­trien’s con­trolled shut­down of its Trinidad Ni­tro­gen op­er­a­tions. It at­trib­uted the shut­down to “port ac­cess re­stric­tions im­posed by Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Na­tion­al En­er­gy Cor­po­ra­tion (NEC) and a lack of re­li­able and eco­nom­ic nat­ur­al gas sup­ply”.

CO2 is used in la­paro­scop­ic surgery to in­flate the ab­dom­i­nal cav­i­ty, cre­at­ing work­ing space for sur­geons, and in the trans­port and stor­age of blood, vac­cines, and med­ical sup­plies.

ANSA McAL Group CEO An­tho­ny Sab­ga III said the com­pa­ny al­so de­pends on CO2 for its op­er­a­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly at Carib Brew­ery. He said he un­der­stands Massy Gas’s sup­pli­ers are work­ing to bring an al­ter­na­tive source on­line, but warned that if those ef­forts fail, the im­pact could ex­tend far be­yond Trinidad. “It could af­fect the en­tire re­gion,” he said.

Massy Gas said it has since reached a com­mer­cial arrange­ment with Pro­man and Plipde­co to se­cure an in­ter­im CO2 sup­ply.

The is­sue reached Par­lia­ment’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee yes­ter­day, when for­mer prime min­is­ter and en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young raised con­cerns over Nu­trien’s ex­it.

“The coun­try is see­ing how one of the largest pro­duc­ers at Point Lisas pick up their bags and leave be­cause of this mis­man­age­ment of the in­dus­try,” Young said.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal re­spond­ed that the mat­ter re­mained un­der dis­cus­sion while not­ing that sev­er­al en­er­gy com­pa­nies closed dur­ing his tenure.

“We are in dis­cus­sions with Nu­trien. It is very sen­si­tive, and we ex­pect that we will get a great op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­vi­talise our strate­gic part­ner­ship — not on­ly in one area but in sev­er­al ar­eas pur­suant to our di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion agen­da,” Mooni­lal said.