00:00Trinidad and Tobago is on the cusp of significant development and on the brink of an energy and economic boom,
00:07according to President General of the Oilfield Workers Trade Union, Ansel Rougie.
00:12The type of investment, foreign direct investment into the sector with all of the different multinationals who are showing interest.
00:21Bright days are not too far ahead. Bright days are here right now.
00:27And I can speak authoritatively to that because of where we sit and position ourselves with the current government.
00:36He says they have full confidence in the ministers of energy who are at the forefront of these efforts.
00:41And the Prime Minister, who would have led the team throughout North America and elsewhere, attracting this type of interest
00:55and investment in the country.
00:58There seems to be a renewed interest in Trinidad and Tobago's resources.
01:07And if one is paying close attention, they will recognize that that interest was not there.
01:13It came after the 28th of April last year and continues.
01:17It's why he says they've partnered with Consulting and Capacity Development Entity Collective Energy Company Limited through an MOU to
01:27retrain and retool OWTU workers.
01:31And while he did not give any updates on the progress of Patriotic Energy Limited's bid for the Poynter Pair
01:37Refinery,
01:38Roger says this will help ready workers for the restart operations and reduce the need to hire expats for key
01:45positions.
01:46And this is part of OWTU's preparing itself for the undertaking the work of the refurbishment and the restart of
01:57the refinery.
01:58But even outside of that, outside of the refinery, outside of even heritage, as those multinationals come to our shore,
02:07we want to be able to tell them, listen, we are ready and we have a well-skilled, well-tooled,
02:15well-able workforce to be able to capitalize on all of the jobs,
02:21all of the job functions and so on that are required to exploit those resources which the country owns.
02:26Executive Chairman of Collective Energy, Dr. Joseph Kahn, says this industry is volatile and with lots of changes,
02:35it is important to keep the present workers ready, skilled and trained for new opportunities.
02:41While we talk about some of the development and you mentioned the refinery and so on, we are not only
02:46focused on that,
02:47we are focused on looking at who we have right now and building them up for the expansion that can
02:54also take place.
02:55So we want to ensure that we have the skills, the competencies, the attitudes, the talents, the know-how
03:03that will support plant expansion, construction, whether it's refinery work or what have you,
03:11technology advancement, leadership, management and so on.
03:15Cindy Raguba, Tika Singh, TV6 News.
Comments