The process to restart the Pointe-a-Pierre refinery will move into a new phase this fiscal year.
The assurance comes from Minister in the Ministry of Finance Dr Kennedy Swaratsingh, who says the Government is preparing to launch a procurement process to identify the right partner for the refinery’s restart.
“So the Ministry of Energy is putting together a process by which they’ll go out and create a procurement system to be able to sift out and get the right partner for Petrotrin. But that is going to happen in this fiscal.”
Minister Swaratsingh said Energy Minister Dr Roodal Moonilal has already been tasked with getting the process underway.
“He’s been working with his team in the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries and so that process will, there’s been a number of exploratory conversations, and the Chairman of Petrotrin and others have been involved in some of those conversations. Now it is time to put, having sussed out a number of persons who would be interested, now it’s time to put a procurement process in place.”
Dr Swaratsingh pointed out that reopening the refinery is critical as T&T continues to import refined fuel while carrying debt linked to the facility.
“It’s very, very critical for us in this space to be able to get the refinery that has been mothballed for some period of time. We’re carrying a lot of debt as well for that, and it would have also dampened our FX earnings as well.”
Economist Dr Vaalmikki Arjoon argued that restarting the refinery would help reduce a growing bill for imported fuel and strengthen the country’s energy position.
“Since the closure of the refinery back in 2018, we’ve been importing our fuel, which is very counter-intuitive, and if I may, a very foolhardy thing for our country. That was just a very, very bad decision that was taken years ago, and it’s very unfortunate that we have not gotten that refinery back up and running as yet.”
Political Scientist Professor Hamid Ghany said the refinery remains a major political issue because of the effect its closure had on communities across South and Central Trinidad.
“If you think of constituencies and local government districts and so on, the political effect of closing down the refinery and people who were no longer employed by Petrotrin, that obviously has an impact on several communities, and we cannot diminish the impact of that decision.”
In his 2026/2027 Budget presentation on Monday, Finance Minister Davendranath Tancoo noted that the Government is advancing the phased restart of the refinery, adding that it is evaluating proposals from a shortlist of serious local and international investors.