Trinidad seeks refinery bids, scraps trading firm sale

Trinidad is taking steps to bring its sole, mothballed refinery back on stream, after the plant halted operations last year

Trinidad and Tobago has issued a request for proposals for its mothballed 165,000 b/d refinery, but cancelled the sale of a recently created fuel trading company.

The government plans to select a firm to restart and operate the loss-making Pointe-a-Pierre refinery by the end of June. Around 50 parties have expressed interest, prime minister Keith Rowley said last month. The plant closed in November after lower domestic crude output left it dependent on imports. Trinidad produced 65,000 b/d last year, down from more than 80,000 b/d in 2014.

Access to feedstock is a key factor that any new operator would have to address, an energy ministry official says. Domestic output that previously came from disbanded state-owned Petrotrin is now produced and exported by new state-owned firm Heritage Petroleum. BP, UK-Australian firm BHP and UK-French independent Perenco also own producing assets in Trinidad.

Energy minister Franklin Khan has ordered another new firm, state-owned Paria Fuel Trading, to withdraw a 15 March request for proposalsfor the sale of the company, saying it had been issued "inadvertently" by the company's chairman Wilfred Espinet. Paria Fuel Trading will not be sold because it is "a strategic state asset" that plays a critical role in ensuring fuel supply, Khan says, amid signs of deepening confusion in the newly restructured energy sector. The firm imports 25,000 b/d of products to meet domestic demand.

Pointe-a-Pierre