00:00Patriotic Energy Services Company Limited is a company owned by the Oilfields Workers
00:05Trade Union.
00:06The union, which represented workers at Petrotrin before that state-owned oil company, was restructured
00:12by the government into Trinidad Petroleum Holdings Limited.
00:16That move by the government in late 2018 resulted in the closure of the oil refinery in Pointer
00:22Pier.
00:23It remains closed.
00:24Patriotic previously sought to be the preferred bidder for the refinery but was unsuccessful.
00:30The government says the refinery will be restarted once a preferred bidder is selected, following
00:36a tendering process which involves a cabinet-appointed evaluation committee and Scotiabank International.
00:42Patriotic again sought to be the preferred bidder.
00:45During the 2025 budget debate in the House of Representatives on Friday, the Energy Minister
00:50explained why Patriotic's second bid was not accepted as he referred it to a document
00:56that he said appears to be a swift message of a cash wire transmission on behalf of Patriotic.
01:02...forged document because when the due diligence was done, of course, no US$1.5 billion was
01:09received by Patriotic at any local bank.
01:12So unfortunately, and yes it is stamped by some unknown person, certified true, but of
01:19course it's easy to verify this because it is either that it exists or it doesn't exist
01:27and I can stand here without fear of contradiction, here and outside, as I might do later on,
01:34and say it is not a real document.
01:36So therefore, unfortunately, they could not move forward.
01:41On Saturday, Patriotic issued a statement in which it claimed that the statement made
01:45by Energy Minister Young in Parliament on Friday, October 4th, was misleading and mischievous.
01:53Patriotic said what the Minister presented on the Parliamentary cover was not Patriotic's
01:57financial partner that met with the Cabinet-appointed Evaluation Committee.
02:02Patriotic said the solely selected financier would have been submitted to the Evaluation
02:07Committee and Scotiabank International, which both accepted as Patriotic's preferred financier.
02:14Patriotic further said that the Evaluation Committee would have interviewed and vetted
02:18Patriotic's preferred financier and at no time did Scotiabank International or the Evaluation
02:23Committee raise any concern about the preferred financier.
02:28Patriotic emphasized that there was some level of comfort and satisfaction with the preferred
02:33financial partner.
02:35Patriotic says that they remain confident that their preferred financier can stand the
02:39scrutiny of any due diligence process and invites same.
02:45In his 2025 Budget Statement in the House of Representatives on Monday, September 30th,
02:50Finance Minister Colm Imbert announced that there is now a shortlist of three companies
02:54to restart the refinery via the evaluation process.
02:59They are the locally based CRO Consortium, Inca Energy LLC based in the USA, and Oando
03:06PLC, a company based in Nigeria.
03:09Jule Brown, TV6 News.
03:15Jule Brown, TV6 News.
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