Trinidad Government Announces New Company For Refinery Assets

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(Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, Carla Bridglal, 18.Oct.2018) The government has announced a new state company, Guaracara Refining Company, into which the assets of the Pointe-a-Pierre refinery will be placed.

The refinery is scheduled to be shuttered by next month, and after the assets have been transferred to Guaracara, the company will advertise a “very broad” request for proposals (RFP), where any interested party can pitch their plan on how the refinery can be utilised.

“Everything will be open for discussion. At the end of the day, we feel we will get a proposal that is acceptable where we will no longer have this albatross around our neck called the refinery, but the assets can still be used in a productive way for the benefit of TT,” Energy Minster Franklin Khan said yesterday at the post-Cabinet media briefing.

Guaracara is one of five new companies created as part of the restructuring of state oil company Petrotrin, including Heritage Petroleum Company Ltd and Paria Fuel Trading Company, which will handle exploration and production and trading and marketing, respectively. Petrotrin as an entity will remain as a company to deal with legacy matters, and these will all be placed into one, Trinidad Petroleum Holdings Ltd.

Heritage and Paria were incorporated on October 5, but according to the Companies Registry, Guaracara is not yet listed.

Khan said a vesting order was being prepared to transfer Petrotrin’s exploration and production assets to Heritage and the terminal, port and pier assets to Paria. There will also be an assignment of exploration and production licences under the name of Petrotrin at the Ministry of Energy to Heritage.

“The transformation process is well on its way and going smoothly,” Khan said. The government hopes to have the new companies operationalized by the end of this year, he said. “All things being equal, 2019 will be a brand new year for the energy sector in TT,” he said. As it stands, all operations are still continuing under the name of Petrotrin. Khan added that all timelines are on schedule for the import and export of fuel and crude oil. The first shipment of fuel is expected around October 22-24 and the first crude export will be October 30-November 1. Neither Khan nor his Cabinet colleague Communications Minister Stuart Young could verify if Petrotrin had indeed retained a supplier for fuel. Khan said the company was “very close if not there already” when asked by reporters for the status, while Young said, given the information provided “I’m sure they have a supplier by now.”

Regardless, Khan said there would be a “seamless transition for the supply” of liquid fuel, liquid petroleum gas (LPG or cooking gas) and bitumen, and the country has a 20-day buffer supply should there be any lapse in delivery time.

Young also said that the price Petrotrin’s crude oil was fetching on the international market was well above the West Texas Intermediate price, the international benchmark price at which the TT budget is pegged. “We thought it would have been less than WTI. It’s even higher than we thought the crude was worth,” Young said.

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