Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor news­gath­er­ing

For­mer prime min­is­ter and en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young is ques­tion­ing whether glob­al fer­tilis­er gi­ant Nu­trien is prepar­ing to sell its phys­i­cal as­sets in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Speak­ing at a me­dia con­fer­ence, Young said in­for­ma­tion reach­ing him sug­gests the com­pa­ny’s plant at the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate 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 prospect as “a dis­as­ter for Trinidad and To­ba­go,” adding: “Nu­trien is one of the largest am­mo­nia pro­duc­ers in the world… when they shut down, has our am­mo­nia pro­duc­tion and ex­port dropped sig­nif­i­cant­ly? The an­swer is yes.”

Young warned the im­pact 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.”

He al­so ques­tioned re­cent gas al­lo­ca­tion de­ci­sions, ask­ing: “Did they shut off gas to the plants at Point Lisas and drop it to DCQ lev­els? Why did they do so?”

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Nu­trien’s Man­ag­er Gov­ern­ment and In­dus­try Af­fairs, Ms. Nneka Men­tore and the Me­dia Re­la­tions Team for com­ment. She said,

“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.”

Guardian Me­dia asked Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny if Gov­ern­ment may seek to ac­quire the as­sets, even though it’s un­clear how such a move would be fi­nanced.

NGC has not re­spond­ed to our re­quest for com­ment.

The com­pa­ny’s op­er­a­tions have been in lim­bo since the end of 2025, af­ter its gas sup­ply arrange­ments ex­pired. While pro­duc­tion re­mains shut down, em­ploy­ees have been told to con­tin­ue re­port­ing to work, with their terms un­changed.

In a mes­sage to staff, a com­pa­ny ex­ec­u­tive said: “Our ni­tro­gen op­er­a­tions re­main shut down, and all op­tions re­main un­der con­sid­er­a­tion.”

Work con­tin­ues at the fa­cil­i­ty to main­tain ba­sic op­er­abil­i­ty, with sources es­ti­mat­ing it is cost­ing about US$2 mil­lion per month to re­tain staff.

The shut­down fol­lowed a dis­pute with the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny over gas sup­ply and out­stand­ing fees, leav­ing hun­dreds of work­ers un­cer­tain about the fu­ture of the op­er­a­tion.