Gail Alexan­der

Quan­ten LLC is an Amer­i­can com­pa­ny that is en­gaged in the Re­quest for Pro­pos­als (RFP) process for the Guaracara re­fin­ery and var­i­ous arms of the Unit­ed States Gov­ern­ment have com­mu­ni­cat­ed with En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young with re­spect to Quan­ten, in­di­cat­ing Quan­ten’s in­ter­est in the RFP process.

Young con­firmed this on Sun­day, al­so slam­ming an Op­po­si­tion at­tack on the RFP process which he said was geared to pre­vent for­eign in­vest­ment in T&T.

Young spoke af­ter al­le­ga­tions by UNC Sen­a­tor Wade Mark on the mat­ter yes­ter­day.

Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley re­cent­ly said a pre­ferred bid­der for the re­fin­ery was iden­ti­fied.

Mark at a UNC me­dia brief­ing ear­li­er in the day, said fol­low­ing last week’s sto­ry by GML’s Cur­tis Williams that Quan­ten was the pre­ferred bid­der, there was no con­fir­ma­tion nor de­nial from the PM, Young or Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert.

“So we have to op­er­ate as­sum­ing that must be cor­rect and there’s some el­e­ment of truth in it,” Mark said.

Mark, who said the UNC re­searched Quan­ten, made al­le­ga­tions about the com­pa­ny which prompt­ed him to call on Gov­ern­ment to “back off from this.”

How­ev­er, Young, who slammed “de­struc­tive UNC mis­chief,” stat­ed, “First­ly, the RFP process for the re­fin­ery is be­ing han­dled by Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings Lim­it­ed (TPHL) along with its ad­vis­ers, in­clud­ing, in­ter­na­tion­al ex­perts. The process is be­ing care­ful­ly man­aged by TPHL and they re­port the progress to the Min­istries of Fi­nance and En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries.”

He added: “As has been stat­ed be­fore, the process has nar­rowed down one en­ti­ty with whom TPHL is en­gaged as they ex­plore the pos­si­bil­i­ties for the fu­ture with re­spect to the re­fin­ery. We con­tin­ue to await the out­come of this process.”

“Sec­ond­ly, with re­spect to Quan­ten LLC and the spu­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions made by the UNC op­po­si­tion in re­la­tion to this en­ti­ty, Quan­ten LLC is an Amer­i­can com­pa­ny that is en­gaged in the RFP process for the re­fin­ery.”

“Var­i­ous arms of the Unit­ed States Gov­ern­ment have com­mu­ni­cat­ed with me, as the Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries, with re­spect to Quan­ten LLC, in­di­cat­ing its (Quan­ten’s) in­ter­est in the RFP process for the re­fin­ery and there has been sup­port for the com­pa­ny as be­ing an Amer­i­can based en­ti­ty. “

“The com­pa­ny has al­so been pur­su­ing the ac­qui­si­tion of oth­er oil re­finer­ies in oth­er ar­eas of the world. The com­pa­ny is en­gaged with TPHL and has to go through the stan­dard and re­quired process­es in these types of mat­ters. There is noth­ing fur­ther to be said at this stage.”

Young told civic mind­ed cit­i­zens “to take care­ful note of the UNC op­po­si­tion’s con­tin­ued at­tacks on for­eign com­pa­nies that le­git­i­mate­ly wish to in­vest in T&T. The UNC op­po­si­tion has es­tab­lished a track record of at­tack­ing for­eign in­vestors who wish to in­vest in our coun­try since Sep­tem­ber 2015. This is yet an­oth­er brazen ex­am­ple.”

I re­mind cit­i­zens of the UNC led at­tacks on the San­dals Re­sorts In­ter­na­tion­al’s at­tempt to build a San­dals and Beach­es Re­sort in To­ba­go. It still pains me as a cit­i­zen to have lost that op­por­tu­ni­ty and to then see the San­dals Re­sorts group in­vest in ho­tels in Cu­ra­cao, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Ja­maica and St Lu­cia when To­ba­go could have been in­clud­ed. The UNC op­po­si­tion’s con­tin­ued at­tack on for­eign in­vestors knows no bound­ary and must be re­ject­ed as we should want to en­cour­age le­git­i­mate for­eign in­vest­ment in T&T,”

“It’s most un­for­tu­nate the UNC op­po­si­tion con­tin­ues with its mis­chief aimed at harm­ing T&T and I con­demn this be­hav­iour,” Young said.

Mark had ques­tioned what qual­i­fied Quan­ten to op­er­ate the re­fin­ery.

“Is this an­oth­er Ni­quan? Bridg­man ser­vices?”, Mark said query­ing if the com­pa­ny was a “front­man for some­one.”

He raised ques­tions on Quan­ten’s head­quar­ters, if they op­er­ate out of a suite in San Jose, Cal­i­for­nia,” and had a “room” at Grand Bazaar.

Mark claimed Quan­ten might take over the re­fin­ery as a con­sor­tium.

Query­ing if the com­pa­ny is about to be giv­en re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to run the re­fin­ery, he added, “If so, has Dr Row­ley and this ad­min­is­tra­tion gone mad? They can’t be se­ri­ous in what we’re be­ing told by Cur­tis Williams that Quan­ten is the suc­cess­ful bid­der.”

“We tell the Prime Min­is­ter to back off as we won’t al­low you and PNM to sell our as­sets to an­oth­er Bridge­mans’ or do an­oth­er Ni­quan. Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings and sub­sidiary Paria must be owned by the peo­ple,” Mark said