KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has dis­missed a claim that NGC Green owes CNG op­er­a­tors more than $450,000 each in elec­tric­i­ty re­im­burse­ments. But Pe­tro­le­um Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Robin Narayns­ingh said elec­tric­i­ty costs have long been a con­tentious is­sue among deal­ers and warned that CNG op­er­a­tions may not be sus­tain­able.

“We have re­ceived the re­lease from the NGC, which is self-ex­plana­to­ry. Some­one is up to mis­chief, it seems,” Mooni­lal said when asked about a no­tice post­ed at the Car­rousel Ser­vice Sta­tion on the Na­pari­ma-Ma­yaro Road in San Fer­nan­do.

Narayns­ingh said elec­tric­i­ty costs as­so­ci­at­ed with CNG op­er­a­tions had long been a con­cern. He re­called that for­mer En­er­gy Min­is­ter Franklin Khan had told the as­so­ci­a­tion that Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um (NP) would pay the ex­cess elec­tric­i­ty costs.

The arrange­ment was dis­cussed at one of the as­so­ci­a­tion’s meet­ings, Narayns­ingh said, al­though he could not re­call how many sta­tions were in­volved. He said high elec­tric­i­ty costs made it dif­fi­cult for deal­ers to sus­tain CNG op­er­a­tions, giv­en their nar­row prof­it mar­gins and oth­er op­er­at­ing ex­pens­es.

The un­signed no­tice at the Car­rousel sta­tion said it was re­duc­ing ser­vices be­cause of “un­sus­tain­able fi­nan­cial con­straints”. It claimed NGC Green “cur­rent­ly owes each CNG Op­er­a­tor/Deal­er over $450,000 in out­stand­ing re­im­burse­ments for in­dus­tri­al elec­tric­i­ty rates con­sumed from March 2025 to the end of Oc­to­ber 2026”.

The no­tice said the al­leged debt meant the sta­tion could no longer main­tain nor­mal staffing lev­els, reg­u­lar CNG shift al­lo­ca­tions or 24-hour op­er­a­tions.

When the Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the sta­tion yes­ter­day, ve­hi­cles were lined up for fu­el, in­clud­ing CNG, with the queue stretch­ing in­to the road­way. At­ten­dants were serv­ing mo­torists, and the no­tice was no longer on the dis­penser.

The sta­tion car­ries the NP brand but is pri­vate­ly owned. Staff de­clined to con­firm or de­ny whether op­er­a­tions had been ad­just­ed, say­ing the own­er was ab­sent and that NP could be con­tact­ed for fur­ther in­for­ma­tion. The own­er could not be reached for com­ment.

Narayns­ingh said he had not been told the ex­act amount out­stand­ing and could not con­firm the $450,000 fig­ure cit­ed in the no­tice.

“I have not had any com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the ex­act amount that is out­stand­ing, but I know it has been a very con­tentious is­sue with some of the deal­ers who op­er­ate the CNG sta­tion,” he said.

He said elec­tric­i­ty con­sump­tion var­ied among sta­tions, so the amounts in­volved would dif­fer.

“The fig­ures on the elec­tric­i­ty bill speak for them­selves. Each sta­tion will have var­ied amounts. Not every sta­tion will have the same amount of elec­tric­i­ty con­sump­tion.”

In a re­lease on Mon­day, NGC Green de­scribed the claim as “false, li­bel­lous, in­ac­cu­rate, un­truth­ful and mis­lead­ing”. It said it did not owe any op­er­a­tor or deal­er more than $450,000 and had sought le­gal ad­vice to pro­tect its rep­u­ta­tion and that of em­ploy­ees named in the no­tice.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed NGC Green for fur­ther com­ment on the re­im­burse­ment arrange­ments, the al­leged out­stand­ing pay­ments and whether any sta­tions had re­duced their op­er­at­ing hours. No re­sponse was re­ceived.

Narayns­ingh said CNG was still be­ing sup­plied at sta­tions, but ques­tioned how long deal­ers could con­tin­ue to bear the costs.

“Well, for the time be­ing. I don’t know how long it can be sus­tain­able.”

He called on the Min­istry of En­er­gy to meet with the as­so­ci­a­tion to ad­dress the is­sue.

“The Min­istry of En­er­gy has to meet with the Pe­tro­le­um Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion to at least come to some agree­ment,” he said, warn­ing that the dis­pute could af­fect the coun­try’s trans­porta­tion sys­tem.

Guardian Me­dia al­so con­tact­ed Mooni­lal to ask whether the min­istry was aware of a pay­ment dis­pute, whether CNG sup­ply was se­cure and whether he would re­quest a re­port from NGC Green. His re­sponse did not ad­dress those ques­tions.

It re­mains un­clear whether any elec­tric­i­ty re­im­burse­ments are out­stand­ing, how much may be owed, which en­ti­ty is re­spon­si­ble for the pay­ments, or whether any CNG sta­tion has re­duced its op­er­at­ing hours.