Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

Of all that has changed in the 166 years since Trinidad’s first oil well was drilled near La Brea’s Pitch Lake, the im­por­tance of petro­chem­i­cals to the coun­try’s de­vel­op­ment re­mains con­stant. As South­ern­ers will proud­ly tell you, the as­so­ci­a­tion be­tween the South and the sec­tor is one steeped in a his­to­ry as rich as the black gold that has flowed from its re­serves for more than a cen­tu­ry.

From the first ex­port car­go of crude oil from Brighton in 1910 to the dis­cov­ery of the High Seas Well 1 in 1954 to the Gov­ern­ment’s ac­qui­si­tion of Shell Trinidad Lim­it­ed in 1974 to the for­ma­tion of Petrotrin in 1993, the list of his­tor­i­cal highs is a lengthy one, but so too is the list of dra­mas. The Uri­ah But­ler-led oil­field ri­ots of 1937, sparked by cries of ex­ploita­tion by the British against oil­field em­ploy­ees come to mind. And Petrotrin’s No­vem­ber 2018 clo­sure marks the lat­est ma­jor chap­ter.

With the com­pa­ny los­ing bil­lions an­nu­al­ly, the Gov­ern­ment shut the Pointe-a-Pierre oil re­fin­ery down, leav­ing more than 3,500 per­ma­nent and 1,200 non-per­ma­nent work­ers un­em­ployed. And while Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny and Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny (the two com­pa­nies com­ing out of the de­funct state en­ter­prise) record­ed com­bined prof­its of more than $1.3 bil­lion in fis­cal 2022, it’s un­de­ni­able that South’s petro-com­mu­ni­ties have for­ev­er been changed. Close to five years af­ter the Petrotrin shut­down, Guardian Me­dia’s in­ves­tiga­tive desk vis­it­ed some of those com­mu­ni­ties to ex­plore how life has changed.

Hold­ing a deep

anx­ious breath

As one dri­ves through Pointe-a-Pierre and Clax­ton Bay, there is a feel­ing as though every­one and every­thing is hold­ing a deep anx­ious breath, wait­ing to ex­hale. Many of the peo­ple dri­ving by in cars or the few walk­ing the roads seem pre­oc­cu­pied, as if they are car­ry­ing the world on their shoul­ders. Rather, it is the weight of Petrotrin’s shad­ow, some res­i­dents said. They said the fu­el that once kept the com­mu­ni­ties alight was cut off in No­vem­ber 2018 with the re­fin­ery’s clo­sure. Left in its wake, they said, is a pain that peo­ple are still strug­gling to come to terms with, and an un­cer­tain­ty that it will ever be over­come.

“Yeah, it worse since Petrotrin closed down. It’s a chain re­ac­tion be­cause when Petrotrin was around, it used to trick­le down, but you’re not get­ting any­thing again.

“I will say it is like there is no com­mu­ni­ty be­cause noth­ing is hap­pen­ing. Even though peo­ple help as a com­mu­ni­ty, on­ly cer­tain peo­ple will get help. It’s not like it’s for all. You help fam­i­ly and friends,” laments Shep­pard, a Tulip Av­enue res­i­dent in his late 50s.

Shep­pard and two Cepep work­ers—Le­ston and Aleem—are hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion in the front of his yel­low one-storey con­crete house near a WASA sta­tion. Le­ston, in his mid-30s, is a for­mer part-time Petrotrin work­er liv­ing in Clax­ton Bay. The fa­ther of two young chil­dren lost his job with the com­pa­ny’s clo­sure.

“Look where I work­ing now. I work­ing at Cepep. It has no op­por­tu­ni­ties or any­thing like that around here. Things get re­al slow. I didn’t get any mon­ey like peo­ple who were (per­ma­nent) in­side of there,” Le­ston says with a de­feat­ed, ner­vous chuck­le.

Le­ston said many young peo­ple in Pointe-a-Pierre, Mara­bel­la and Clax­ton Bay are des­per­ate for de­cent-pay­ing, hon­est work. He lament­ed that peo­ple can’t sur­vive on a min­i­mum wage, giv­en the in­creas­ing cost of liv­ing in re­cent years.

“The min­i­mum wage stays at $17.50 (this was done be­fore Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert raised it to $20.50 for fis­cal 2024) for too many years. What are you get­ting with that? $100 is noth­ing. That’s two things in the gro­cery.

“When prices go up, peo­ple with mon­ey pay­ing it, you know. They not or­gan­is­ing any protests and say­ing prices go­ing up. Peo­ple with the mon­ey, they go­ing and buy it, and en­cour­age the stu­pid­ness that go­ing on,” he says.

It is not by chance crime is on the rise in the South and seem­ing­ly every­where else in the coun­try, he said.

“It have a lot of youth men break­ing in­to places and thiev­ing and rob­bing to live. Be­cause you work a hard day and they want to pay a labour­er $200 be­cause the Venezue­lans are work­ing for that.

“The old­er peo­ple in gov­ern­ment need to step down and let some younger heads go and see what they could do. Those old heads on­ly spin­ning top in mud. They look­ing to fat­ten their pock­et,” Le­ston says.

Lis­ten­ing to Le­ston, Shep­pard re­called the days of rais­ing his chil­dren. He said the milk that he used to pay $17.50 for now costs $100.

“What we talk­ing about here, you feel it dif­fer­ent if you go to Clax­ton Bay? Or let us go fur­ther if you go to Port-of-Spain? So it seems like we just fool­ing our­selves. We have to be re­al–all over is the same thing. It’s Trinidad and To­ba­go, peo­ple bawl­ing, and the poor peo­ple will al­ways be bawl­ing and just keep bawl­ing. We will al­ways feel it be­cause they not do­ing any­thing for the poor peo­ple. The rich will be rich and the poor will get poor­er. At some point, you are gonna have to take from the rich and give to the poor.

“It’s too many things hap­pen­ing with this Gov­ern­ment and they have no ex­pla­na­tions. The elec­tions are a racial thing and if you put it aside, the re­al things will hap­pen,” Shep­pard says.

A five-minute dri­ve away, along the South­ern Main Road, Jef­frey is sell­ing fruit and veg­eta­bles at a stall pieced to­geth­er with wood­en planks. The area is de­void of ac­tiv­i­ty. The bar op­po­site does not have a sin­gle cus­tomer. The build­ings are des­per­ate­ly in need of a new coat of paint. Bare­back and his chest cov­ered in tat­toos, Jef­frey is well-spo­ken and friend­ly. When he hears what Guardian is ask­ing about, he springs out of a jad­ed malaise to tell his sto­ry.

“Joshua, me be­ing here is a re­sult of Petrotrin clos­ing. I used to work for a com­pa­ny that used to go along the tankers that would come out of Petrotrin and take their bilge wa­ter from the sumps and all of that—a down­stream ser­vice. I was there for 22 months. Be­cause of Petrotrin, the com­pa­ny crashed.

“This area was built by Tex­a­co. My fa­ther, who is now de­ceased, worked at Tex­a­co, and Trin­toc and I think he worked one or two years at Petrotrin be­fore he re­tired. All the land was award­ed to Tex­a­co work­ers but since that, a lot of peo­ple who used to work in the re­fin­ery moved on to do cer­tain things,” Jef­frey says, putting up a brave face, but vis­i­bly both­ered by the rec­ol­lec­tion.

Jef­frey said while Ni­Quan’s GTL plant start­ed up af­ter­wards, it has not had any­thing close to the same sort of im­pact. Petrotrin, he said, had a gen­er­a­tional lega­cy in south­ern com­mu­ni­ties where sons would of­ten re­place their fa­thers in the com­pa­ny up­on re­tire­ment.

“To­tal­ly, my life has changed. Even though I nev­er worked a day for the com­pa­ny, hav­ing been in a down­stream com­pa­ny, it im­pact­ed my life im­mense­ly. Now I have to work sev­en days a week just to make ends meet.

“Nor­mal­ly this place was pump­ing with ac­tiv­i­ty. Peo­ple would run by the gro­ceries, run by the food place, but un­for­tu­nate­ly, all that done. At the end of the day, what they gonna say, Petrotrin closed down, look for oth­er av­enues, but they ain’t put noth­ing in place for oth­er peo­ple,” Jef­frey laments be­fore ser­vic­ing a cus­tomer.

‘They kill every­body’

Across the road from Jef­frey’s stall is a small or­ange build­ing at the en­trance to Plai­sance Park. While the shop is closed un­til fur­ther no­tice, it was once owned by a res­i­dent–Gary (not his re­al name)–a for­mer Petrotrin work­er. He worked for 14 years as a per­ma­nent em­ploy­ee and 19 years as a con­tract work­er. Af­ter be­ing laid off, he opened a food out­let there, but it closed re­cent­ly. The cost of rent be­came too high. Now, he sells soup from home.

“I used to load ships. I was an op­er­a­tor out in the sea right there where all the tankers come in.

“It’s re­al­ly hard boy. Petrotrin wasn’t a shop, so when I signed up for Petrotrin, I did it hop­ing I would make the 60-year-old to ac­cess pen­sion and oth­er ben­e­fits. I tried to go and take a big loan and when the clo­sure hap­pened, it cost me re­al mon­ey, even the mon­ey they give me for my 14 years of ser­vice wasn’t equiv­a­lent to cov­er that loan,” Gary says from in­side his ve­hi­cle, thick beads of sweat pour­ing from his face.

The in­side of his mini­van has seen bet­ter days, the fab­ric is torn and stained, and its in­te­ri­or reeks of stale cig­a­rettes. Gary is clear­ly in a rush to do some­thing but the op­por­tu­ni­ty to tell his sto­ry is enough to put those plans on pause. He said em­phat­i­cal­ly what the Gov­ern­ment did to Petrotrin em­ploy­ees was ‘mur­der’.

“Busi­ness got slow. Men lost their lives. Men un­der pres­sure still pay­ing for what­ev­er they had. They promised the fel­las and them they would get back their work. Most of the fel­las didn’t get back their job.

“I have a wife and fam­i­ly. I have things to pay for–mort­gage, this, that. Right now, I am a hus­tler. I try­ing, but it hard. I still sur­vive, but some kill them­self be­cause they can’t take it again. That was an un­just thing they did. I told my­self they had an­oth­er way to do it and what I didn’t like, I re­mem­ber the Prime Min­is­ter came out and said we are not go­ing to close down Petrotrin. He made that state­ment to the pub­lic that he was just go­ing to close the re­fin­ery. They didn’t just close the re­fin­ery. They take the whole of Petrotrin, so they mash up every­body,” Gary says, sweat still pour­ing pro­fuse­ly down his face.

Ac­cord­ing to the for­mer Petrotrin work­er, no mat­ter what the gov­ern­ment does in the fu­ture, it can nev­er make up for what it did. They may be sav­ing mon­ey, he said, but they killed off com­mu­ni­ties and with it, the fu­tures of mul­ti­ple gen­er­a­tions.

“They tell them­selves they do good, but they do a bad. Petrotrin is a com­pa­ny that no chance in the world you would ex­pect to close down. They nev­er in­formed broth­ers that they go­ing to close, so men were still tak­ing loans. So when you do some­thing like that and go boop and hit men, and then gone in the pub­lic and say we give them X amount of mon­ey, yeah, the men on top get big mon­ey. The man­agers, mil­lons. Small men down there, get noth­ing or a small pen­sion. What that could do with this cost of liv­ing here now?” he says be­fore dri­ving off to col­lect some gro­ceries.

‘The move was nec­es­sary’

One of Gary’s neigh­bours ac­knowl­edges there is suf­fer­ing brought about by Petrotrin’s clo­sure, but be­lieves the move was nec­es­sary. He blames the Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union for what took place.

“You see the last two or three per cent that they give them in the in­dus­tri­al court, that was the nail in the cof­fin. Every­one fight­ing for more mon­ey. I give you $10 more, you not giv­ing me $10 more work. And that is what hap­pened there. Every­body wants more mon­ey, but they not giv­ing you worth for what you’re work­ing for. And that is why it closed down. If a busi­ness run­ning with­out a union, watch how it pro­gress­es,” the res­i­dent says.

The res­i­dent said the unions played pol­i­tics with the peo­ple, all while its lead­ers took home huge salaries. He said for decades sto­ries of the un­pro­duc­tiv­i­ty of Petrotrin work­ers were shared.

“Work­ers weren’t work­ing. You work­ing and you leav­ing your job and you go­ing to drink. Imag­ine a man on sick leave and drink­ing in the sports club and he is of­fer­ing the man­ag­er a beer,” he says.

An­oth­er Plai­sance Park res­i­dent stopped his ve­hi­cle to add his voice to the con­ver­sa­tion. He says, “Things run­ning good. They were right to close Petrotrin. They were de­stroy­ing the coun­try fi­nan­cial­ly. Any­one with com­mon sense would tell you the unions de­stroy there. Greed. All the years of con­tri­bu­tions, what do they have? Do you have a par­lour? Do you have a gro­cery? What do you have for your mem­bers with their con­tri­bu­tions? What you give them boots and a uni­form?” he says be­fore dri­ving off.

No jobs

Out­side of an aban­doned build­ing in Clax­ton Bay, a known drug block, three men are con­vers­ing. Two of them are mar­i­jua­na deal­ers. The area is in ur­gent need of a wash­down. Its build­ings are stained by gang graf­fi­ti.

“It’s F****d up. F****d up. The peo­ple who are on top, stay­ing on top and the peo­ple who are un­der­neath, they keep­ing them un­der­neath.

“It got plen­ty worse since Petrotrin closed down. I used to be able to make a dol­lar or two dol­lars here and there. Now you can’t go any­where and make any­thing. It have noth­ing. When you come there, I thought you com­ing to say you want a lit­tle $40 or a $50 in mar­i­jua­na or some­thing,” one of the deal­ers says.

He said many young peo­ple from Mara­bel­la, Point and Clax­ton Bay used to make an hon­est liv­ing as part-time Petrotrin work­ers or work­ing in the down­stream in­dus­tries but now op­por­tu­ni­ties are scarce.

“Right now, it’s pres­sure. What op­por­tu­ni­ties does it have? Just imag­ine they telling you they want five, sev­en or ten sub­jects to do pet­ty things that any man out here could do.

“The Gov­ern­ment sell­ing out every­thing. They sell out Petrotrin. They sell out the pitch lake. It’s the politi­cians who have us here be­cause Trinidad has enough re­sources. Pover­ty is get­ting way worse. The youths have no jobs. A man could stay hun­gry, you know, but a man can­not sit down and watch his chil­dren be hun­gry. He will kill you to feed the chil­dren,” he says.

A woman in her 40s lim­ing with an­oth­er deal­er near­by said this was the worst she had seen Clax­ton Bay and Pointe-a-Pierre in her life. She de­scribes it as di­lap­i­dat­ed and dis­gust­ing.

“That is the worst thing they could have ever done in my life. Did that make any kind of sense? Do you know how many peo­ple used to live be­cause of the re­fin­ery? Peo­ple are re­al­ly un­der pres­sure now. Re­al pres­sure. This was the cap­i­tal of south Trinidad. Peo­ple used to come down here to look for a liv­ing … All Moru­ga, Mal­oney ...

“The ban­dit rate is get­ting high­er be­cause peo­ple can’t get a liv­ing. Home in­va­sions get­ting more promi­nent. It is the most promi­nent thing right now,” she says.

As I leave, one of the deal­ers says, “You can’t leave a lit­tle $20, broth­er?”

I say, “I don’t have any­thing on me. I’ll try to come back.”

He says with a laugh, “You sound like them politi­cian there boy. You eh com­ing back.”