By Alicia Chamely
Minister of Energy and Energy Affairs Dr Roodal Moonilal is reaffirming the government’s commitment to the reopening of the former Petrotrin refinery.
Speaking with AZP News on Monday, he said, “I have asked for a complete update on the state of the refinery in terms of their last examination of the installation. I have asked for technical reports on the state of the refinery after seven years of closure. We have made a commitment to return to refining, and that is something we are very serious about.”
He added, “After meeting with the CEOs I should be in position to have a very good idea on the state of the installation at this time, what it can do, what it cannot do, if we can reopen in phases, the financial outlay , the capital investment that is required and of course the input to the refinery that will come externally, and the production of various products that we export within the CARICOM and elsewhere.”
Regarding the previous government’s stance that the refinery was unprofitable due to the costs of importing fuel and the country’s low fuel production, he said, “I am not sure that is a fact, and I am still going to be questioning that and asking for the reports, because to my knowledge during the period 2010–2015, when we did have more information, the refinery was making a profit. That has been a cause of concern for us because there was a multibillion-dollar investment by both the Manning administration and the first Persad-Bissessar administration into that refinery.”
Dr Moonilal said another concern that needed to be addressed was the decline in oil and gas production, saying, “When we left office in 2015 it was 78,000 barrels a day, today if you heap up everybody who is producing it is about 50,000 barrels a day. So clearly, we need to ramp up production. I intend to interface with the lease operators in the sector to get their assessment of what is happening and what we can do in the short term to ramp production. As they say in America ‘Drill baby, drill,’ I say in Trinidad it is, ‘Keep pumping baby, keep pumping.'”
He said, in respect to sourcing fuel for the refinery, “We are going to develop a business model where we can import fuel from Guyana, transport gas, one way or another, from Suriname and/or Guyana into T&T and of course for our own downstream industries.”
Moonilal asserted that all agreements made between the government T&T and those our CARICOM neighbours, must be one of mutual benefit.
He said it was frightening to him that no government-to-government agreements had been made between T&T and Guyana, Suriname and/or Grenada. He pointed out that deals made by the former government were those with service contractors, not the direct government.
Moonilal said, “Part of our policy is to rebuild, to recalibrate and restructure the energy sector so that we will become the energy capital of the Caribbean. The Caribbean has changed its commercial and business makeup in the last two decades or so. It is not the same Caribbean marketplace it was 30 years ago.”
Background
On 30th November 2018, the state-owned Petrotrin was restructured and its oil refinery shut down under the Dr Keith Rowley-led PNM government.
The government cited continuous losses that had escalated to $1.2 billion by 2016. The operational costs of the refinery had also increased with domestic oil production falling and the need to import oil to keep the refinery afloat.
The government said it was actively looking for investors to lease or take over the refinery.
On 27th February 2025, former Minister of Energy Stuart Young announced the Nigerian energy company Oando Plc had been selected as the preferred bidder for the lease of the refinery.
He said the decision was based on the company’s strong financial track record within the energy sector.
The lease agreement allowed the government to retain ownership while granting usage rights to Oando.
Young said the arrangement would reduce the state’s burden in maintaining and upgrading the refinery and allow for future developments.
Responding to this announcement, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, then opposition leader said, “The UNC will not honour any agreement this government enters into regarding the Pointe-a-Pierre refinery, and we guarantee the UNC will pursue investigations against everyone who participates in the theft of the refinery’s assets.”
She added that the UNC was “committed to restarting the Petrotrin refinery” should the UNC return to power after the 2025 general election.
