The En­er­gy Cham­ber of Trinidad and To­ba­go has ac­knowl­edged the an­nounce­ment by Nu­trien Ltd. of a con­trolled shut­down of its op­er­a­tions at Point Lisas. The Cham­ber not­ed that Nu­trien is a ma­jor in­vestor and ex­porter of am­mo­nia, and its pres­ence re­mains im­por­tant to the strength of the down­stream en­er­gy sec­tor.

In a state­ment, the Cham­ber said while it would not com­ment on com­mer­cial ne­go­ti­a­tions, the de­vel­op­ment high­lights the need to main­tain Trinidad and To­ba­go as an at­trac­tive and com­pet­i­tive des­ti­na­tion for en­er­gy in­vest­ment. It added that it recog­nis­es the Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts to ad­dress gas sup­ply and in­fra­struc­ture chal­lenges and is en­cour­aged by progress in new up­stream projects. The Cham­ber said it stands ready to as­sist in find­ing a res­o­lu­tion that pro­tects jobs, in­vest­ment, and the fu­ture of Point Lisas.

Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Dr Roodal Mooni­lal con­firmed that dis­cus­sions are on­go­ing be­tween Nu­trien and the Na­tion­al En­er­gy Cor­po­ra­tion re­gard­ing con­trac­tu­al arrange­ments for port use and re­lat­ed mat­ters.

Dr Mooni­lal said sev­er­al down­stream op­er­a­tors and port users are en­gaged with the NEC to up­date ex­ist­ing con­tracts that were not fi­nalised un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion. He added that the Gov­ern­ment is work­ing to com­plete these arrange­ments to en­sure prop­er agree­ments are in place.

For­mer Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Stu­art Young, in a Face­book post, raised con­cerns about the cur­rent state of the en­er­gy sec­tor and cit­ed changes to the boards of NGC and NEC as con­tribut­ing to chal­lenges at Point Lisas.