In 2018, the ad­min­is­tra­tion of for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley shut down our oil re­fin­ery, an en­ti­ty fun­da­men­tal to the na­tion­al econ­o­my and which cre­at­ed em­ploy­ment for over 10,000 peo­ple di­rect­ly and in­di­rect­ly. I termed the shut­down the “Petrotrin Sin” from which we con­tin­ue to bleed.

It is at the heart of the for­eign ex­change cri­sis we face to­day. Petrotrin’s re­fined prod­ucts earned a gross US$350 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly. But be­tween 2018 and 2024, this coun­try spent over US$7.65 bil­lion to im­port gaso­line, jet kerosene, kerosene, diesel, LPG, fu­el oil and bi­tu­men, prod­ucts the re­fin­ery once pro­duced.

“That makes any sense to you?” asks Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

See why our for­eign re­serves are now the low­est in 17 years?

We must be grate­ful to the prime min­is­ter for the Re­fin­ery Restart Com­mit­tee, whose in­ter­im re­port states, “The restart of the re­fin­ery is tech­ni­cal­ly, com­mer­cial­ly and fi­nan­cial­ly vi­able, giv­en the cur­rent mar­ket de­mands for re­fined prod­ucts and crude avail­abil­i­ty.”

The heal­ing has be­gun.

But what drove the shut­down? Both the Petrotrin board and three in­de­pen­dent re­ports by Kin­sey, Solomon and Lash­ley had ad­vised re­struc­tur­ing, not clo­sure. For­mer Petrotrin chair­man Wil­fred Es­pinet re­peat­ed­ly told an In­dus­tri­al Court hear­ing in Jan­u­ary 2018 that he nev­er ad­vised the gov­ern­ment to close down Petrotrin, which they claimed was close to in­sol­ven­cy and had not paid tax­es.

But Petrotrin had paid $20.3 bil­lion in tax­es be­tween 2010 and 2016, says the Ex­trac­tive In­dus­tries Trans­paren­cy Ini­tia­tive (EITI); and the com­pa­ny’s au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments for 2017 proved it was not near in­sol­ven­cy. In­deed, be­tween 2016-18, Petrotrin re­ceived no sub­ven­tion from the gov­ern­ment. And on Feb­ru­ary 21, 2018, di­rec­tor Nigel Ed­wards told a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment that Petrotrin gen­er­at­ed cu­mu­la­tive free cash flow of +US$ 270 mil­lion (TT$ 1.8 bil­lion) in the five years be­tween 2013-2017 amidst col­lapsed oil prices. “Near in­sol­ven­cy?”

A T&T Guardian sto­ry of April 24, 2019, stat­ed Petrotrin made an op­er­at­ing prof­it of TTS1.8 bil­lion! What re­al­ly drove the sin­ful shut­down?

Some say the heavy debt bur­den aris­ing from the failed Gas to Liq­uids plant un­der ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Mal­colm Jones dur­ing a for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion. But many are con­vinced the “fake oil” is­sue in­volv­ing A&V Oil and Gas, owned by the for­mer prime min­is­ter’s very good friend, was at the heart of the shut­down. This is­sue was first re­vealed by then Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Re­mem­ber the sto­ry, folks?

An in­ter­nal Petrotrin au­dit re­port al­leged A&V was re­ceiv­ing pay­ments for oil not pro­duced. The Petrotrin board, un­der chair­man Es­pinet, im­me­di­ate­ly com­mis­sioned two ex­ter­nal au­dits, by Kroll Con­sult­ing and Gaffney Cline and As­so­ciates. Both con­firmed the find­ings by Petrotrin’s In­ter­nal Au­dit De­part­ment. Both agreed that be­tween Jan­u­ary to June 2017, Petrotrin over­paid TT$80 mil­lion to A&V Oil and Gas, which op­er­at­ed the Cat­shill Field, which “over­stat­ed its pro­duc­tion by at least 350,000 bar­rels for the pe­ri­od.” Gaffney Cline ad­vised “the reser­voir was in­ca­pable of yield­ing the re­port­ed vol­umes.” In De­cem­ber 2017, the Petrotrin board gave no­tice of con­tract ter­mi­na­tion to A&V, which then brought a civ­il suit against Petrotrin.

Both the High Court and Court of Ap­peal dis­missed the A&V suit. The Privy Coun­cil al­so re­ject­ed A&V’s ap­pli­ca­tion to ap­peal the find­ings of the lo­cal courts; and stat­ed Petrotrin was free to ter­mi­nate its mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar con­tract with A&V Oil and Gas.

In the midst of all this, the gov­ern­ment shut down the re­fin­ery. Sus­pi­cions were ram­pant it was to en­sure no records were found and no wit­ness­es could come for­ward to tes­ti­fy in the “fake oil” is­sue. Sus­pi­cions grew even stronger when the four gov­ern­ment mem­bers on the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) of par­lia­ment vot­ed against a hear­ing on the is­sue, pre­vent­ing de­tailed analy­sis and in­ter­ro­ga­tion.

Very sig­nif­i­cant­ly, Es­pinet was dis­missed from his po­si­tion in Au­gust 2019 and re­placed by Michael Quam­i­na, Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s per­son­al lawyer, as the new chair­man of Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings Lim­it­ed (TPHL), suc­ces­sor com­pa­ny to Petrotrin.

Then came the strangest de­vel­op­ment of all. The “fake oil” mat­ter was sent to ar­bi­tra­tion pro­ceed­ings! This pro­duced a very ques­tion­able rul­ing in A&V’s favour! Se­nior Coun­sel Deb­o­rah Peake, Petrotrin’s lawyer in the pro­ceed­ings, urged the com­pa­ny to ap­peal. Her 18-page opin­ion said the award dis­closed “gross and fun­da­men­tal er­rors,” that “the find­ings on the prin­ci­pal is­sues are ir­ra­tional and un­sup­port­ed by the ev­i­dence” and “the ar­bi­tra­tors are guilty of mis­con­duct in the con­duct of the pro­ceed­ings.” For­mer chair­man Es­pinet, in a paid ad­ver­tise­ment, al­so said TPHL should ap­peal the ar­bi­tra­tion rul­ing. But un­der its new chair­man, TPHL de­cid­ed to pay $120 mil­lion to A&V and give the com­pa­ny a new ten-year pro­duc­tion con­tract as set­tle­ment!

Peo­ple were shocked and fur­ther hurt! For many, the is­sue will re­main one of the dark­est clouds hang­ing over Trinidad and To­ba­go.

But now there is the promise of heal­ing.

“Our fu­ture looks very bright with the re­open­ing. We thank the Prime Min­is­ter for the Christ­mas gift,” says Daphne Bartlett, pres­i­dent of the San Fer­nan­do Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion, echo­ing the op­ti­mism in the coun­try.

We are on the way to heal­ing that deep Petrotrin hurt.