RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Chair­man of Guaracara Re­fin­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed Gow­tam Ma­haraj says it is too ear­ly to de­ter­mine whether bids will be re­opened for the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery.

Ma­haraj, who is al­so a mem­ber of the new­ly formed Re­fin­ery Restart Com­mit­tee, con­firmed that a date for the first meet­ing of the com­mit­tee will be set soon.

The com­mit­tee has been giv­en four months to pre­pare a pro­pos­al for Gov­ern­ment. Ma­haraj said the group’s work will in­volve the as­sess­ment of the eco­nom­ics of the re­fin­ery open­ing, as­set in­tegri­ty, and phased plant restarts.

“I would imag­ine that go­ing for­ward, the as­sess­ment and the work of the com­mit­tee will con­sti­tute the eco­nom­ics of re­fin­ing in the cur­rent state be­cause mar­ket con­di­tions and eco­nom­ics dri­ve any busi­ness,” he ex­plained.

“The as­pects of as­set in­tegri­ty will be looked at, the as­pects of what plants should be brought on­line and in what time­line, in what phase; these are some of the things that would be con­sid­ered.”

Ma­haraj al­so said the com­mit­tee’s work sig­nals a na­tion­al fo­cus on im­prov­ing for­eign ex­change ac­cess, job cre­ation, and do­mes­tic fu­el pro­duc­tion.

“Of course, the for­ma­tion of the Restart Com­mit­tee is a sig­nal to the coun­try of the Prime Min­is­ter’s man­date of en­sur­ing the forex is­sue is fixed, the em­ploy­ment is­sue is fixed, and, of course, pro­duc­tion of our own prod­ucts for our lo­cal use oc­curs. All of that will be the ben­e­fits of re­open­ing the re­fin­ery,” he said.

Told there were con­cerns over the re­fin­ery’s abil­i­ty to process lo­cal heavy crude and pro­duce high-qual­i­ty re­fined prod­ucts, Ma­haraj said the fa­cil­i­ty has his­tor­i­cal­ly re­fined T&T’s heavy crude and is con­fig­ured for it, earn­ing a rep­u­ta­tion for pro­duc­ing qual­i­ty prod­ucts to in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards.

He said glob­al stan­dards al­low for the blend­ing of dif­fer­ent crude types to meet prod­uct tar­gets.

Ma­haraj dis­missed sug­ges­tions that the re­fin­ery is ob­so­lete or that prod­uct qual­i­ty will suf­fer.

He al­so point­ed to the ex­pe­ri­ence and ca­pa­bil­i­ty of the lo­cal work­force, say­ing re­fin­ery pro­fes­sion­als from the coun­try are sought af­ter in glob­al mar­kets.

“Petrotrin tal­ent is searched for and utilised glob­al­ly at this point in time ... We have in­vest­ed in in­ter­na­tion­al sup­port, com­bined with our own ex­pe­ri­ence, to be able to pro­duce the tal­ent and to be able to bring about the know-how and the tech­ni­cal knowl­edge which now re­sides in us.”

Ma­haraj said pro­ce­dures, sys­tems, and qual­i­ty mod­els used at the fa­cil­i­ty are well es­tab­lished and have been de­vel­oped over years of op­er­a­tions.

Asked whether pre­vi­ous bid­ders such as Jin­dal or OAN­DO PLC may be in­vit­ed to sub­mit of­fers again, Ma­haraj said the com­mit­tee’s re­port will in­flu­ence such de­ci­sions, and it would be pre­ma­ture to speak on the process be­fore the re­port is com­plete.

“The com­mit­tee’s re­port will in­flu­ence, in terms of ad­vice, what should go for­ward. So to say at this stage that bids will be re­opened, you know, will be pre-empt­ing what the re­port has not pro­duced as yet,” he said.

He not­ed that in­ter­est in man­ag­ing the re­fin­ery re­mains strong, in­clud­ing from the Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU). Ma­haraj said re­fin­ing re­mains a vi­able busi­ness de­spite trends in al­ter­na­tive fu­els and wel­comed ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est.

He added that fi­nal de­ci­sions will rest with the Cab­i­net, which will re­ceive the com­mit­tee’s re­port in four months.

Ear­li­er this year, OAN­DO PLC, based in Nige­ria, was named by the PNM as the lead­ing can­di­date to as­sume con­trol of the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery. How­ev­er, dur­ing the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion cam­paign, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress sig­nalled its in­ten­tion to col­lab­o­rate with the OW­TU on restart­ing re­fin­ery op­er­a­tions.

Since then, a High Court judg­ment has held the OW­TU and its af­fil­i­ate, Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies and Tech­nolo­gies Ltd re­spon­si­ble for more than US$4 mil­lion in loan oblig­a­tions tied to their pre­vi­ous at­tempt to ac­quire the re­fin­ery.

For­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan, in a re­cent in­ter­view, said restart­ing the re­fin­ery would re­quire in­volve­ment from a cred­i­ble in­ter­na­tion­al in­vestor. She al­so stressed the im­por­tance of a co­op­er­a­tive mod­el that in­cludes prop­er reg­u­la­to­ry over­sight and the par­tic­i­pa­tion of pri­vate sec­tor stake­hold­ers.

Ef­forts to reach com­mit­tee chair­man Kevin Ram­nar­ine were un­suc­cess­ful, as calls and mes­sages went unan­swered.