Petrotrin refinery shut down

[shake d livin wake d dead]

So the march is for what exactly...cuz if what you all say is true...march din make sense

[Pointman-IA]

Termination letters are being collected by individuals.

[MG Man]

march is a joke....there really isn't anything anyone can do to stop the government from doing whatever it wants to do, short of insurrection...let's just sa the buck wake up tomorrow and announces it selling NGC to ANSA in a done deal, anybody really believe social media warriors and peaceful marches will make him reverse his decision?

[neilsingh100]

When OWTU is no longer the majority union for Petrotrin and Roget is terminated from the company can he continue to serve as OWTU President General?

[vaiostation]

Espinet: No plan to decommission Petrotrin refinery

Wilfred Espinet
Petrotrin chair­man Wil­fred Es­pinet says there is no plan to de­com­mis­sion the Petrotrin re­fin­ery when it ceas­es op­er­a­tions. In­stead, the plant will be moth­balled and pre­served in a way that it can be eas­i­ly restart­ed if some­one wants to buy it. The re­fin­ery is due to cease op­er­a­tions by the end of this month, one month ahead of the No­vem­ber 30 planned clo­sure of the com­pa­ny.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia this evening, Es­pinet said, “There is no plan to­day, as we speak, to de­com­mis­sion the re­fin­ery. The re­fin­ery is be­ing shut down and moth­balled so that if some­body wants it, it will be there.”

Es­pinet said Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley made it clear that “if some­body wants the re­fin­ery there would be a pe­ri­od they would look and see if some­body wants the re­fin­ery and some­body may want it, so the plant would be moth­balled.”

On Wednes­day, Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar called on the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty to in­di­cate whether or not a Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance (CEC) had been grant­ed for the de­com­mis­sion­ing and/or clo­sure of the Re­fin­ery. In a let­ter to EMA chair­man Nadra Nathai-Gyan, she warned that with­out sat­is­fy­ing the le­gal re­quire­ments of the EMA, the clo­sure of the re­fin­ery can have “cat­a­stroph­ic and cat­a­clysmic ef­fects on the en­vi­ron­ment which will last well in­to the fu­ture.”

But Es­pinet yes­ter­day said there was no need for a CEC be­cause “we shut­ting down the plant and it will be moth­balled, how that reach de­com­mis­sion­ing? The short an­swer is we not de­com­mis­sion­ing the plant.”

One in­dus­try ex­pert ex­plained that moth­balling is where the plant is ba­si­cal­ly stored in such a way "that when you come back to it, it is not a heap of rust and it can start."

In moth­balling, he said, "You may not re­move all of the hy­dro­car­bons et cetera, but you will fill up en­gines with oil or any­thing to stop rust, cor­ro­sion and degra­da­tion so you are pre­serv­ing it know­ing that in fu­ture you want to start again."

De­com­mis­sion­ing, the ex­pert said, means you have no in­ten­tion to use the plant again and all the hy­dro­car­bons, gas­es and flam­ma­ble ma­te­r­i­al will be re­moved.

Es­pinet said the re­fin­ery will stop pro­duc­tion some­where be­tween the mid­dle and the end of this month.

“It takes some time for it to shut down, it’s not a light switch. There are a num­ber of plants to be shut down, it will be done sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly one af­ter the next. Then they will have to bleed them of all the things they are do­ing, then clean them out and fill them with some kind of chem­i­cal to keep it moth­balled in good con­di­tion.”

He said in the tran­si­tion pe­ri­od there would be a “safe shut­down of the plant and the plant would be put in­to a safe and clean sys­tem so that it will be iso­lat­ed from its run­ning.”

But Es­pinet could not say how long the plant would re­main moth­balled, not­ing that is de­pen­dent on the “fi­nal de­ci­sions made on the plant. That would be de­pen­dent on pro­pos­als and I imag­ine the share­hold­ers will make the de­ter­mi­na­tion.”

He al­so said de­spite the so-called “moth­er of all march­es” be­ing staged by the Oil­field Work­ers' Trade Union from San Fer­nan­do to Port-of-Spain, Petrotrin was still op­er­at­ing as nor­mal.

"Peo­ple are work­ing and every­thing is run­ning, the plant is run­ning,” Es­pinet said.

Es­pinet said it ap­peared that the “union is not in sync with the peo­ple, I am sor­ry to say they are on their own agen­da.” As of yes­ter­day, there had been no dis­cus­sion on the ter­mi­na­tion pack­ages be­cause Es­pinet said the union had made it “abun­dant­ly clear” that they are not dis­cussing the mat­ter.

The OW­TU, which rep­re­sents the ma­jor­i­ty of the work­ers, is seek­ing an in­junc­tion from the In­dus­tri­al Court to try to stop the planned clo­sure of the oil com­pa­ny.

As it now stands, Es­pinet said the com­pa­ny con­tin­ues to work to­wards the No­vem­ber 30 date for the com­pa­ny to cease op­er­a­tions.


Possible Petro-Sabga/Aboud/Massy/ANSA?

[The_Honourable]

Hope the protesters not supporting the 1% behind them.

[Mr President]

Next week Monday is the end of the 3-day big shot lawyers' showdown

[MaxPower]

chicken sellout...”protesters” making more noise inside KFC than outside...tsk tsk

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

chicken sellout...”protesters” making more noise inside KFC than outside...tsk tsk

Wouldn’t doubt that

[sMASH]

need to check back the labor laws to see how legitimate retrenchment is, when the company isnt closing

[kstt]

The way this Board /Goverment trying to undermine the union and workers I wouldn't be surprised they intentionally sabotaged the facilities to makeep the union and workers look bad.

[kstt]

Imbert said 1st Oct was last supply of imported crude so refinery will be shutdown in 7-10 days since they will run out of crude to refine. I find it hard to believe but seems like Petrotrin board / government outsmart the OWTU.

Explains why they issued retrenchment letters today instead of Monday. While union was occupied marching to POS the Board buss throats.

[kstt]

need to check back the labor laws to see how legitimate retrenchment is, when the company isnt closing

[The_Honourable]

Energy Minister Franklin Khan is finally providing details about what the new restructured company will look like.

During his contribution to the Budget debate today, he says the company will be split in four.

He also attempted to assuage concerns by the population of a disruption in supply.

[Monkey Man]

WEE SHALLL OVERRR COMEEEEEE!!!!

[Monkey Man]

STINK DUTTTY SCUM OF THE EARTH, WE SHALL OVER COME

[Gem_in_i]

Can they file for bankruptcy?

[Cantmis]

Liquid nitrogen lol

[hong kong phooey]

buyer done organise , why you think they shutting it down so it can be easily restarted.
them boys hardly get any thing in their package
1 month for the each year for the first 5 years
1 1/4 month per year for the next 14 years
1 1/2 per month for each year after 19 years

[shake d livin wake d dead]

Solidarity forever!!!!!!

[hong kong phooey]

like everything else , this only affects a small number of people , most of the country not even discussing this.
Again south people problems.

[neilsingh100]

buyer done organise , why you think they shutting it down so it can be easily restarted.
them boys hardly get any thing in their package
1 month for the each year for the first 5 years
1 1/4 month per year for the next 14 years
1 1/2 per month for each year after 19 years

I was surprised by this offer also. TSTT VSEP offered employees up to 3 months salary for each year of service I think.

[gastly369]

Petro workers getting pipe...hold strong comrades

[Redman]

Possible Petro-Sabga/Aboud/Massy/ANSA?

Apparently there are 3+ competitive bids plus the unions offer.

Perenco wants Trinmar

Chinese want the refinery+

Middle East group wants everything.


Has the union published it's offer?

[Pointman-IA]

Possible Petro-Sabga/Aboud/Massy/ANSA?

Apparently there are 3+ competitive bids plus the unions offer.

Perenco wants Trinmar

Chinese want the refinery+

Middle East group wants everything.


Has the union published it's offer?

This is my bet:

SHELL for Trinmar- to get access to the gas in West South West Soldado and have it monetised right in ALNG.

BP for Terminalling/ Marketing.

ANSA McAl/Massy for Refinery

[sMASH]

That seems on breach of the labor laws with respect to packages and Reason for retrenchment.

Sue.

[Joshie23]

Possible Petro-Sabga/Aboud/Massy/ANSA?

Apparently there are 3+ competitive bids plus the unions offer.

Perenco wants Trinmar

Chinese want the refinery+

Middle East group wants everything.


Has the union published it's offer?

Source, Redman? Pointman-IA has a pretty good hypothesis.

buyer done organise , why you think they shutting it down so it can be easily restarted.
them boys hardly get any thing in their package
1 month for the each year for the first 5 years
1 1/4 month per year for the next 14 years
1 1/2 per month for each year after 19 years

I was surprised by this offer also. TSTT VSEP offered employees up to 3 months salary for each year of service I think.

Lol 'enhanced packages' ent? It's amazing that anyone actually believes anything this Gov't says anymore.

[shake d livin wake d dead]

So if the 1% get ah lil taste of the refinery...safe to say rowley ah oreo?

[wing]

The union refused to negotiate severance packages with the board. They threw all their eggs into one basket wrt their proposal and injunction. So workers were left with the bare minimum. Got screwed both sides...

[vaiostation]

This entire situation playing off so odd. I mean, if the issue before the industrial court, why rush to terminate people. It just gives of the impression like you've got something to hide.