Trinidad To Relaunch Tender For Refinery

Instant Max AI

(Argus, 19.Jan.2021) — Trinidad and Tobago will seek new bids for its idle 165,000 b/d Pointe-a-Pierre refinery following the November 2020 collapse of a sale agreement with a labor union-owned company, energy minister Franklin Khan said today.

A $700mn offer from Patriotic Energies and Technologies (PET) in 2019 was preferred over two short-listed competitors, US private equity firm Beowulf Energy and German refiner and trader Klesch, Khan said.

If Beowulf and Klesch are still interested, they will have to present new offers, as will Swiss-based commodities trader Trafigura that had offered to help PET to restart the refinery, finance minister Colm Imbert said.

A schedule for the relaunched tender will be announced “in about four weeks,” Imbert said, adding that the government will not set a reserve price for the facility.

Khan said the government wants the refinery restarted and is hoping for “a quick sale” but will not invest any state funds in the money-losing plant that was closed in November 2018.

Trinidad is among a number of Caribbean neighbors such as Dutch-controlled Curacao and Aruba that are looking to resuscitate aging refineries.

While in operation, Trinidad’s refinery supplied domestic and neighboring markets.

PET is owned by oil workers’ union OWTU that has not commented on whether it intends to make a new offer for the refinery.

Its shareholders in the refinery would include Suriname-based private equity firm SunStone Equity and UK independent Mak England, OWTU said in December 2018. Neither company responded to repeated requests for comment or confirmation of participation in the company.

Among the key challenges for a new refinery operator would be crude feedstock. Trinidad produced 56,604 b/d of crude in January-September 2020, down by 3.7pc from a year earlier, according to the energy ministry.

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