00:00There's some good news to come in the coming days. We have now sufficient and widespread interest in the refinery.
00:08It is a matter of time now before some important decisions are taken.
00:15The announcement by Energy Minister Dr. Rudal Munilal about the mothballed state-owned oil refinery and pointer pair while he
00:22contributed to the debate of the 2026 Finance Bill in the House of Representatives.
00:27Madam Deputy Speaker, it is a matter of time before the Prime Minister will direct on some important decisions to
00:34do with that refinery.
00:36But the appetite is now there. So we are on the verge of confronting that because of the level of
00:43interest now being showed by investors, by governments, state-owned companies and by international private sector energy companies.
00:51Because the energy world has really changed in the last year with developments in Venezuela, increasingly Guyana and so on.
00:58Minister Munilal made his announcement as he was responding to remarks made by Opposition MP and former Energy Minister Stuart
01:05Young.
01:06What have you achieved in the past year on that other side? Shut down nutrient. That is what you've achieved.
01:14That is your legacy. You have others on the estate now looking, worried. The stakeholders, the pet chem industry, worried.
01:27And questioning, do we pick up our plants from Trinidad and Tobago and do we go to other jurisdictions?
01:33Minister Munilal gave a rebuttal on behalf of the UNC-led government.
01:37I just want to remind the former minister and former Prime Minister that under the PNM administration, Yara shut down,
01:47Metanex closed the titan, MHTL was idle, boat plants, metal shut down, the refinery shut down, as I said before.
01:55The energy minister told the low house it is costing taxpayers up to $750,000 a month to maintain the
02:03Mothballed refinery.
02:04As he referred to documents, he said, are related to payments for financial advisor during the former administration.
02:12When it comes to technical details, we have legal teams, financial teams.
02:17So we are not going to be paying $8 million United States to do nothing over that short period of
02:232019 to 2024.
02:26The total paid to Scotia capital, this belongs on the platform, my son, man.
02:30The total paid to Scotia for this engagement has been $4 plus $3,7.
02:35$8 million United States dollars.
02:38Now, you understand what happened here?
02:40The figures I called here didn't add up to $8 million United States dollars.
02:45$8 million United, $7 million, yeah.
02:48Opposition MP and former minister in the finance ministry, Brian Manning, spoke right after Minister Munila.
02:54We are here to discuss a finance bill where various concessions were given to operators in the energy industry.
03:02The minister of energy says nothing about that.
03:06Nothing at all.
03:07If you're here to talk about reading letters from this one and that one, nothing of substance to the people
03:12of this country.
03:13The energy minister had earlier spoken about a very recent virtual meeting.
03:18And we do all of this thing without a conga line.
03:20We do all of it without.
03:23We met with Saudi Ex-Ap this morning discussing a $50 million United States dollars investment in the facilities at
03:33Point of Pair from Port of Spain and Santa Flora.
03:37Meeting took place.
03:38We didn't fly off all over the world to do that.
03:40The refinery was closed in late 2018 by the then government as part of its restructuring of the state-owned
03:47oil company,
03:48but was unable to accomplish the sale or lease of the refinery before the 2025 general election.
03:56Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
03:59Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
03:59Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
04:00Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
04:01Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
04:01Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
04:01Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
04:01You
Comments