Petrotrin is everybody’s business, Energy Chamber

In a statement, the Energy Chamber said Petrotrin has an important role to play in the availability of US dollars since the company imports “significant volumes of crude oil from various international markets, including Gabon, Norway and Russia, to process through the refinery, with the products being sold on both the domestic and export markets.” “Crude oil is the country’s biggest dollar value import item. If, through increased domestic production, Petrotrin is able to reduce the volumes of oil it imports while maintaining its exports of products, it will be able to significantly increase the amount of US dollars available in Trinidad and Tobago,” the Chamber stated. And noting that Petrotrin remained a “key player” in the economy of Trinidad and Tobago with the sustainability of the company possessing “direct implications for our macroeconomic situation.” “Concerns about the financial viability of Petrotrin – and its heavy debt burden – directly affect the overall confidence of international investors in Trinidad and Tobago, as well as our international ratings,” the Chamber stated.

The Chamber also noted that Petrotrin is a very “important source of tax revenue for the government, and could be more so if it manages to increase oil production.” “Increasing domestic crude production will not only increase the amount of tax revenue paid directly to the government from the upstream, it will also help with the profitability of the refinery. The more domestic crude that Petrotrin puts into the refinery, the better the refining margins and the better the chance of the refinery being profitable (and hence paying more taxes to the government,” the Chamber stated. The Chamber stated that the key to any short-term effort to reverse falling national oil production was likely to come from the “mature acreage under the control of Petrotrin – both onshore and in the Gulf of Paria.” “While deep-water exploration has the potential for significant new oil production in the longer term, the reality is that any more immediate increase in oil production is likely to Increasing crude oil production should be a major objective for both the country and the company. This means that what happens in the company, and how it is able to secure capital to invest in new production, is everybody’s business,” the Chamber stated.