DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of En­er­gy Ernesto Ke­sar says the Petrotrin re­fin­ery can be restart­ed through a five-phase plan, ac­cord­ing to the find­ings of a re­port sub­mit­ted to Gov­ern­ment by the Re­fin­ery Restart Com­mit­tee chaired by for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine.

“De­spite some de­te­ri­o­ra­tion in the as­sets, he is of the firm opin­ion that the re­fin­ery can be restart­ed, and I think we have rec­om­mend­ed a five-phase ap­proach,” Ke­sar told Guardian Me­dia, quot­ing di­rect­ly from the com­mit­tee’s find­ings.

He de­clined to pro­vide fur­ther de­tails ahead of his up­com­ing Bud­get con­tri­bu­tion, but hint­ed that the Prime Min­is­ter will ad­dress em­ploy­ment and en­er­gy mat­ters.

Turn­ing to oil price pro­jec­tions, Ke­sar de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s use of a US$73.25 per bar­rel bench­mark in the 2026 Bud­get, ex­plain­ing that it was de­rived from a long-stand­ing for­mu­la de­vel­oped by tech­nocrats with­in the Min­istry of Fi­nance and the Min­istry of En­er­gy.

“We were out for 10 years and so, nine and a half years now and even be­fore that, this for­mu­la is what was be­ing used,” he said.

“Com­mod­i­ty oil prices and how we peg it is not just on what we buy or what we sell. There are oth­er as­pects of the busi­ness as well that con­tribute to why we will peg it at the price.”

He said while glob­al shifts could in­flu­ence prices, the pro­jec­tion re­mains with­in in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards and re­flects con­fi­dence in the Gov­ern­ment’s en­er­gy out­look.

“This Gov­ern­ment is re­al­ly on a tra­jec­to­ry to en­cour­age heavy in­vest­ment and for this coun­try to start back to make more than it is spend­ing,” Ke­sar said.

“Hence the rea­son why the deficit has been kept with­in in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards.”

He added that pri­vate sec­tor col­lab­o­ra­tion will be key to eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty and urged com­pa­nies to show re­straint in ad­just­ing prices in re­sponse to pol­i­cy changes.

“We live in a plur­al so­ci­ety, and there are many ex­tra­ne­ous vari­ables that not even the Gov­ern­ment can con­trol,” Ke­sar said.

“There must be an ap­peal to that na­tion­al con­scious­ness—but while that ap­peal has been made, we al­so have to reg­u­late.”

The Op­po­si­tion, how­ev­er, has ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of in­flat­ing the pro­ject­ed oil price, there­by un­der­es­ti­mat­ing the ac­tu­al Bud­get deficit.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les and for­mer Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert claimed the move was de­lib­er­ate and in­tend­ed to jus­ti­fy fu­ture with­drawals from the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund.