KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Cana­di­an fer­tilis­er gi­ant Nu­trien has re­ject­ed claims by the Na­tion­al En­er­gy Cor­po­ra­tion (NEC) that it owes sev­er­al mil­lion dol­lars in retroac­tive port fees, trig­ger­ing a stand­off that has forced the com­pa­ny to be­gin a con­trolled shut­down of its Trinidad Ni­tro­gen op­er­a­tions.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal con­firmed that the dis­pute over port ac­cess and out­stand­ing fees re­mains un­re­solved, even as dis­cus­sions con­tin­ue be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the com­pa­ny. Nu­trien, which op­er­ates at Point Lisas, in­sist­ed the fees are un­jus­ti­fied and said NEC’s de­ci­sion to re­strict port ac­cess has left it with no choice but to tem­porar­i­ly halt op­er­a­tions, putting some 600 jobs on the line.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, NEC and the min­istry, un­der for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young, failed to ne­go­ti­ate new port con­tracts with sev­er­al down­stream op­er­a­tors for more than four years. He said the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion in­her­it­ed the is­sue and is now re­spon­si­ble for re­solv­ing it.

Nu­trien, one of the world’s largest sup­pli­ers of crop in­puts and ser­vices, an­nounced that it has be­gun a con­trolled shut­down of its Point Lisas op­er­a­tions, ef­fec­tive Thurs­day.

In a state­ment on its web­site, the com­pa­ny said the de­ci­sion stems from port ac­cess re­stric­tions im­posed by NEC and a lack of re­li­able and af­ford­able nat­ur­al gas, which has af­fect­ed prof­itabil­i­ty for an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od. Nu­trien said it would con­tin­ue en­gag­ing stake­hold­ers while as­sess­ing op­tions for its Trinidad op­er­a­tions.

Mooni­lal con­firmed that Nu­trien and oth­er “down­stream­ers” have been in talks with NEC about port ac­cess and re­lat­ed con­trac­tu­al mat­ters.

“We are in on­go­ing dis­cus­sions with Nu­trien con­cern­ing port re­stric­tions and port ac­cess, and I ex­pect that this mat­ter will con­tin­ue to oc­cu­py our at­ten­tion. Those dis­cus­sions are on­go­ing, and we will have fur­ther up­dates in the com­ing days,” Mooni­lal said.

He added that the min­istry will meet with the var­i­ous en­ti­ties and port users to do what the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion failed to do: reg­u­larise and up­date con­tracts gov­ern­ing the use of the port.

How­ev­er, ne­go­ti­a­tions have been on­go­ing for over a month, and sources with­in the com­pa­ny said it was the Gov­ern­ment that has been play­ing hard­ball. Mooni­lal did not re­spond to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia ask­ing whether the in­abil­i­ty to rene­go­ti­ate spoke more about the Gov­ern­ment than the com­pa­ny.

He al­so de­clined to an­swer ques­tions about if he felt the com­pa­ny leav­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go was the bet­ter op­tion, even if the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion had mis­han­dled the first con­tract. Ques­tions were al­so raised about whether oth­er en­er­gy con­tracts at the Point Lisas es­tate, which are up for re­new­al soon, could face a sim­i­lar fate.

While the is­sue re­mains un­re­solved, Nu­trien re­port­ed that its Trinidad op­er­a­tions pro­duce about 85,000 tonnes of am­mo­nia and 55,000 tonnes of urea month­ly. The com­pa­ny ex­pects to re­main with­in its 2025 an­nu­al ni­tro­gen sales vol­ume tar­get of 10.7 to 11.2 mil­lion tonnes, ow­ing to strong per­for­mance in North Amer­i­ca.

Staff told about com­pa­ny’s fu­ture at town hall meet­ing

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Nu­trien’s Mediter­ranean Dri­ve com­pound yes­ter­day, an em­ploy­ee con­firmed that staff were in a meet­ing about op­er­a­tions but de­clined to com­ment. Short­ly af­ter, the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Port De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion’s (PLIPDE­CO) tac­ti­cal re­sponse unit ar­rived and in­struct­ed the me­dia to leave the es­tate.

The staff had been called in­to a town hall meet­ing where they were told about the com­pa­ny’s fu­ture.

At­tempts to get clar­i­fi­ca­tion from Nu­trien on lay­offs and tran­si­tion plans went unan­swered.

How­ev­er, an in­ter­nal memo ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia showed that Nu­trien Trinidad Vice Pres­i­dent Ed­mond Thomp­son told staff the com­pa­ny had been ne­go­ti­at­ing with NEC, which claimed Nu­trien owed sev­er­al mil­lion dol­lars in retroac­tive port fees.

“We dis­pute NEC’s po­si­tion and have been ac­tive­ly work­ing to re­solve the mat­ter through con­struc­tive di­a­logue. Re­gret­tably, NEC has now con­firmed its in­tent to re­strict Nu­trien’s ac­cess to the port. With deep dis­ap­point­ment, this ac­tion leaves us with no choice but to be­gin a con­trolled, tem­po­rary shut­down of op­er­a­tions ef­fec­tive Oc­to­ber 23,” Thomp­son wrote.

He said the com­pa­ny was de­vel­op­ing a de­tailed sched­ule for the shut­down and may need to im­ple­ment tem­po­rary work­force ad­just­ments, in­clud­ing short-term lay­offs. A small team will re­main on-site to main­tain es­sen­tial ser­vices and safe­guard as­sets. Staff were in­struct­ed to con­tin­ue re­port­ing to work as usu­al while new se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures were im­ple­ment­ed.

“Our Trinidad ni­tro­gen com­plex plays an im­por­tant role in the lo­cal econ­o­my, and our goal is to re­solve this mat­ter with NEC. We un­der­stand this news is un­set­tling, and I want to ac­knowl­edge the im­pact it has on our en­tire team. Please know that we are com­mit­ted to keep­ing you in­formed and sup­port­ing you through this process,” Thomp­son said.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands Nu­trien could have shut down long ago be­cause high nat­ur­al gas prices in Trinidad made its prod­ucts un­com­pet­i­tive and op­er­a­tions fi­nan­cial­ly un­sus­tain­able. The com­pa­ny and oth­ers in the in­dus­try re­mained open main­ly due to their com­mit­ment to staff, not be­cause the busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment was favourable.

Guardian Me­dia al­so un­der­stands that all ex­ist­ing gas con­tracts are set to ex­pire at the end of the year. Nu­trien and oth­er com­pa­nies have not re­ceived draft term sheets from the NEC or NGC.

These fac­tors cre­ate un­cer­tain­ty about fu­ture gas sup­ply, pric­ing, and op­er­a­tional con­ti­nu­ity for com­pa­nies like Nu­trien, as well as Methanex, Pro­man, and NGL.

UNC dri­ving en­er­gy sec­tor col­lapse

For­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young warned that Nu­trien’s shut­down sig­nals the start of the en­er­gy sec­tor’s col­lapse un­der the UNC Gov­ern­ment. In a Face­book post, Young ac­cused the ad­min­is­tra­tion of desta­bil­is­ing Point Lisas by forc­ing out NEC’s pres­i­dent and se­nior ex­ec­u­tives at NGC.

“Cit­i­zens, the man­age­ment of stake­hold­er re­la­tion­ships and the con­fi­dence of for­eign in­vestors in our en­er­gy sec­tor are crit­i­cal and should be care­ful­ly han­dled. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, it is clear that the Prime Min­is­ter and her two Min­is­ters of En­er­gy are de­stroy­ing our en­er­gy sec­tor, and this will af­fect in­vest­ment and our rev­enue. We should be very con­cerned about the lev­el of in­com­pe­tence that has been ap­point­ed to man­age our en­er­gy sec­tor,” Young said.

En­er­gy Cham­ber wants swift ac­tion to pro­tect jobs, in­vest­ment

Mean­while, the En­er­gy Cham­ber ac­knowl­edged Nu­trien’s an­nounce­ment, not­ing the com­pa­ny’s im­por­tance as a ma­jor in­vestor and ex­porter of am­mo­nia.

“While we do not com­ment on com­mer­cial ne­go­ti­a­tions, this de­vel­op­ment un­der­scores the im­por­tance of en­sur­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains an at­trac­tive, world-class des­ti­na­tion for en­er­gy in­vest­ment. We ac­knowl­edge that the Gov­ern­ment is work­ing hard to ad­dress long-stand­ing gas sup­ply and in­fra­struc­ture chal­lenges, and we are en­cour­aged by the progress in new up­stream projects,” the cham­ber said in a re­lease.

The cham­ber said it stands ready to help find a swift res­o­lu­tion that pro­tects jobs, in­vest­ment, and the fu­ture of Point Lisas.

AM­CHAM T&T urges stake­hold­er col­lab­o­ra­tion

AM­CHAM T&T ac­knowl­edged Nu­trien’s con­trolled shut­down at the Point Lisas fa­cil­i­ty, say­ing the de­vel­op­ment high­lights the need for con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion among stake­hold­ers to en­sure a sta­ble and com­pet­i­tive in­vest­ment en­vi­ron­ment and con­struc­tive di­a­logue to ad­dress op­er­a­tional and in­fra­struc­tur­al con­straints.

The is­sues now ex­tend to the Nu­trien Sil­ver Stars Steel Or­ches­tra. Due to the cur­rent un­cer­tain­ty, Nu­trien has in­formed the group that it can­not com­mit to a new con­tract or spon­sor­ship at this time. The steel­pan part­ner­ship con­tract was sched­uled to be signed next week.

About Nu­trien

* Nu­trien, the com­pa­ny that an­nounced a con­trolled shut­down of its T&T op­er­a­tions start­ing to­mor­row, is a Cana­di­an fer­tilis­er com­pa­ny that is head­quar­tered in Saskatchewan.

* It was formed through the merg­er of Potash­Corp and Agri­um, in a trans­ac­tion that closed on Jan­u­ary 1, 2018.

* It is one of the largest pro­duc­ers of fer­tilis­ers in the world, with size­able pro­duc­tion of potash and ni­tro­gen fer­tilis­er (am­mo­nia and urea).

* It man­u­fac­tures am­mo­nia and urea from its op­er­a­tions on the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate.

* Nu­trien's 2024 an­nu­al re­port states that the an­nu­al ca­pac­i­ty from its T&T op­er­a­tions is 2.2 mil­lion tonnes. It pro­duced 1.27 mil­lion tonnes in T&T in 2024.

In an in­ter­view pub­lished in the Busi­ness Guardian in De­cem­ber last year, Nu­trien Trinidad's vice-pres­i­dent and man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Ed­mond Thomp­son said the com­pa­ny op­er­ates five plants at Point Lisas: four am­mo­nia and one urea.

"In a large-scale man­u­fac­tur­ing op­er­a­tion like ours, we wish to run our plants 24 hours a day, sev­en days a week. That’s what they’re de­signed to do. In some cas­es, we’re not able to run all our plants all the time. That im­pacts our over­all ef­fi­cien­cy. It does im­pact us in that way.

"We’re able to run three of the four plants com­fort­ably right now. Once we fin­ish Train IV, we will have to make a de­ci­sion about how to com­bine; which three of the four plants we will run. We on­ly have gas to run three out of the four am­mo­nia plants."

He said it was ob­vi­ous that nat­ur­al gas sup­ply is a chal­lenge for Nu­trien. "Like many of the oth­er pro­duc­ers here in Trinidad and To­ba­go, we don’t have an abun­dant sup­ply of gas, so we face cer­tain re­stric­tions in nat­ur­al gas sup­ply. We’re not able to run our fa­cil­i­ties full out. That is a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge for us," Thomp­son said.

“We man­age with­in those con­straints, but it does con­tin­ue to be a chal­lenge,” Thomp­son said.

The com­pa­ny has a mar­ket cap­i­tal­i­sa­tion of US$27.8 bil­lion.