• by IPS Correspondents (port of spain)
• Monday, December 19, 1994
• Inter Press Service

PORT OF SPAIN, Dic 19 (IPS) - Officials at the state-owned oil company Petrotrin are scrambling now to find a new plan for the Point Fortin Refinery after attempts to sell the plant failed.

"If we cannot sell or lease it , we will have to look at options to reduce its negative impact on us," Petrotrin's managing director Keith Awong said on the weekend.

The refinery currently costs the company seven dollars per year and interested investors who had up to Friday to assure the handlers of the divestment that they were able to buy the refinery failed to do so.

None of the three bidders, two from the United States and one with European/Saudi Arabian connections proved themselves capable of obtaining the financial support needed for the purchase, Awong said.

"There was no convincing evidence that they were able to buy the refinery," he added.

Petrotrin was asking for between 15 and 20 million dollars for the refinery, a price petroleum sources here say was a good one given the value of the plant.

The plant is valuable they say primarily because of its location. Trinidad and Tobago, in the southern Caribbean, is barely 19 km off the northern coast of Venezuela, another major oil producing country. The Point Fortin Refinery once refined Venezuelan crude.

Awong said the bidders have neither owned nor operated a refinery.

"The bidders were not majors in the (oil) industry. They are relatively small and the most they have is an interest in the industry," he said.

Petrotrin will now either lease the refinery, sign an operating agreement with a local or international company or scale down operations, he said.

One available option will be to "terminal" the operations. This will facilitate and supplement the operations at the nearby Pointe-a-Pierre Refinery, including the use of storage capacity, Awong continued.

The Point Fortin Refinery currently generates electricity and pumps water for the majority of residents in the surrounding south coast community.

With the recent passing of the Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission (TTEC) Bill in Parliament Awong said Petrotrin will consider selling electricity to TTEC.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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