(Trinidad Guardian) Energy Minister Kevin Ramnarine yesterday told a news conference that he is now prepared to meet with the Oilfields Workers Trade Union (OWTU) to discuss its opposition to any plan to include private equity in Petrotrin. This comes as Ramnarine admitted that the Indian company, Reliance Industries Ltd, was interested in partnering with Petrotrin to develop its heavy oil estimated at between three and seven billion barrels. He said: “When we talk about heavy oil it is only Petrotrin and by extension Trinmar that has any significant amount of heavy oil, and, so Reliance has expressed an interest in partnering with Petrotrin in developing its heavy oil.” Upon her return from India, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar touted a US$1billion investment proposal from Reliance as an example of the success of her two-week trip to India. The Prime Minister revealed that the project to build an upgrader that was announced several months ago was now being extended to include partnering with Petrotrin to develop its heavy oilfields.
Ramnarine said Reliance has requested some data from Petrotrin and it was expected to be provided within a two-month period. OWTU’s president general Ancel Roget has been adamant that the union will not allow Government to bring in an equity partner for the state-owned oil company. On Tuesday, Roget told the Guardian: “We are radically opposed to privatisation of Petrotrin’s assets, whether it is to a local or foreign company. “We recognise that this People’s Partnership Government is bent on implementing a model of privatisation that is not dissimilar to the one that the PNM board, led by Malcolm Jones, wanted to implement. “We will oppose it and I promise it will not be allowed to happen. This is not what we voted for.”
Roget agreed that the heavy oil should be developed but argued that Petrotrin had the expertise and workers to do the job safely. He said the issue was not money because he was confident that the funds could be raised. “Don’t tell me anything about the funds, because we had a report done, in conjunction with the Ministry of Energy and Petrotrin, where we identified easy wins that could increase our crude production in a very quick manner by 4,000 barrels of oil per day and that money could be used to invest. In any case, the company can raise the money.” Roget said workers had fought too long and hard for the country’s patrimony to be in local hands to give it away to a foreign enterprise and he accused the Energy Chamber of being party to attempts by the Government to privatise aspects of Petrotrin’s operations. Roget was critical of Ramnarine, accusing him of arrogance and of refusing to meet with the workers representative.
He said: “We take serious offence to the posturing of this Minister of Energy who, unlike his predecessor, Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan, refuses to meet with the OWTU, which is a key stakeholder in the industry. But we want to tell him that we will not stand for his arrogance and that whether he wants to give our patrimony away to those in India or T&T, we will have none of it.” The OWTU president general said the time had come to end the politics in the state oil sector. But Ramnarine said he was ready to meet with the union on the matter. “I am prepared to talk to the OWTU on the issue and I will meet with them shortly.”
Ramnarine was speaking at yesterday’s launch of the Energy Service Company certification committee (ESCO) at the Hyatt Regency Trinidad hotel, Port-of-Spain. The newly-appointed members were given their instruments of appointment. Ramnarine said the purpose of the committee is of special significance as it signals the acceleration of T&T’s drive to become more energy efficient and to put the economy on the path of sustainability.
