By Chantalé Fletcher
PRESIDENT of the Oilfields Workers Trade Union (OWTU) Ancel Roget says Trinidad and Tobago does not and never produced the required amount of crude to run the refinery.
He said, “Petrotrin always imported crude from its earliest incarnation to process at the refinery.”
Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Roget described different types of crude for refinery processing that were required to ensure refinery margins would have been profitable.
He said, “Therefore Trinidad and Tobago does not produce the different quality of crude that the refinery would have required to have it operate optimum.”
Roget said Minster of Energy Stuart Young was not familiar with the types of crude and different quality of products that come from refined crude, as he did not have a background in engineering, chemistry or petroleum.
Hence, he chastised Young for peddling misinformation to the public by giving the impression that US$650 million of crude was required by Petrotrin and therefore that was unsustainable over a three-year period.
Roget added that Young neglected to speak about the revenue gained after the crude underwent various processes at the refinery, in which products were also sold locally and regionally.
“All products sold outside T&T earned foreign exchange. But Mr Young seemed to only focus on the US $650 million that Petrotrin would have required to import crude,” he said.
Roget then made reference to two documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act by concerned citizens which showed the value of refined products purchased and imported by Paria as US $3.5billion from December 1, 2018, to January 2022 since Petrotrin’s closure.
He said the same scarce foreign exchange would have to be used to import jet and bunker fuel, gasoline and diesel otherwise there would be no economic activity and everything will come to a halt.
“As they did not consider when their anxiety to hurt the OWTU, they did not consider for one moment how they will be hurting T&T,” Roget added.
He made reference to a document from the Ministry of Finance which showed no subvention was granted from 2016 to 2018, however, in 2019, the Ministry of Finance gave a subvention of TT$1.2 billion.
Roget said, “While Petrotrin was in operation, no subvention was required but to shut it down, they went and find money to associate it with the cost of shutting down.”
He said had they not shutdown Petrotrin, no subvention would have to be paid and the Government would not have to find $1.2 billion.
Roget described the $1.2 billion as “Vex money from Rowley, send all the workers home, mash-up OWTU.”
He also said $169 million from the Ministry of Energy was to facilitate interest payment on a $200 million loan facility.
However, Roget added while Petrotrin was in operations, it never defaulted on its loan payment and challenged the minister to say otherwise.
