New refinery coming as Petrotrin seeks new markets

The Pointe-a-Pierre refinery will be upgraded and a second, private refinery might be built next to it.

He said Cabinet has approved Petrotrin’s sourcing of US$350 million (TT$2.2 billion) to upgrade the Pointe-a-Pierre Refinery.

Government will not give funding, he said, but wanted Petrotrin to seek a joint-venture partner.

The upgrade would let Petrotrin refine gasoline of better quality and quantity.

First of all, he said, while each barrel of crude-oil refined at Petrotrin now yields just one-quarter barrel (24.7 percent) of gasoline, the upgraded refinery will yield almost one-third barrel (30.7 percent) of gasoline. Secondly, Petrotrin will run a US$70 million ultra low sulphur diesel programme to reduce the number of sulphur contaminants in the refined diesel oil from 41 to eight parts per million, making the gasoline more efficient and ie more environmentally friendly.

The refinery upgrade will also cut the proportion of fuel oil yielded.

Williams was asked yesterday if the $2 billion upgrade of Petrotrin’s refinery is feasible if it is to lose its premier Caricom oil market of 60,000 barrels per day to the recent PetroCaribe deal, where Caricom countries access cheap Venezuelan oil. He said there was uncertainty about where PetroCaribe is actually heading.

He assured the money could be safely invested in the upgrade, since Petrotrin would earn money from its new export markets.

Williams said the Petrotrin upgrade would allow it to create a better, less-polluting quality of gasoline which would be highly-sought after in new markets, especially cities which had stringent clean-air standards.

A proposed second oil refinery, he said, would not undercut Petrotrin because the global market, was big enough for both refineries.