Petrotrin starts crude exports, fuel imports

Trinidad and Tobago's state-owned Petrotrin has started importing fuel and exporting crude as it begins to decommission its 168,000 b/d Pointe-a-Pierre refinery.

BP Latin America Integrated Sales and Trading provided a first cargo of unspecified fuel, the first of 16 contracted shipments, Petrotrin said last week.

Neither company commented on the details of the supply contract.

In August, the government issued a request for proposals from 13 trading companies to supply 25,000 b/d of refined products to meet domestic demand.

While in operation, the refinery supplied domestic and neighboring island markets with gasoline, kerosene, aviation fuel, diesel, fuel oil and LPG.

Petrotrin's first export of crude that would have been processed in the refinery was 500,000 bl of 20°-21° API Molo grade that was purchased by Swiss-based trading house Trafigura.

The crude was loaded on the tanker Hellespont Progress on 30 October, Petrotrin said.

The company plans to export 40,000 b/d of crude, representing 60pc of national production. The balance is produced by private-sector companies led by led by Perenco, BHP and BP.

The decommissioning of the century-old refinery will be completed by the end of November. The facility had been plagued by huge losses, high debts and cost overruns, Petrotrin said on 28 August when it announced the plan to shut it down.

Bloated costs stemmed from dead-end projects such as a gasoline optimization program whose cost ballooned from $242.3mn to $1.9bn, and a gas-to-liquids project that was originally budgeted at $238.4mn but which cost the company $484.6mn. Petrotrin spent $444mn on an incomplete ultra-low sulfur diesel plant – twice the original estimate. None of the projects came to fruition.

The government is renegotiating the terms of Petrotrin's $1.6bn in debts with foreign banks, and projects that earnings from crude exports will allow it to write down its local liabilities, including redundancy payments to the refinery's 1,700 direct employees.

The government is in the process of replacing Petrotrin with three new state-run entities that will be operating by the end of December.

The companies will be responsible for exploration and production; trading and logistics; and the assets of the decommissioned refinery.