Trinidad Refinery Restart Seen as Feasible

The restart of Trinidad and Tobago's 175,000b/d Guaracara refinery is technically, commercially and financially viable given current market demand for refined products and crude availability. The energy ministry provided the update after the refinery restart committee, chaired by former energy minister Kevin Ramnarine, submitted an interim report.
The plant at Pointe-à-Pierre was shuttered in 2018 as part of the restructuring of national oil company Petrotrin. With the company losing billions annually, the former People’s National Movement government shut the refinery down, leaving more than 3,500 permanent and 1,200 non-permanent workers unemployed. Since then, Guaracara Refining, a subsidiary of Trinidad Petroleum Holdings created that year, has overseen the refinery.
The committee is due to present final feasibility and restart option recommendations in the coming months. In November, the new government, which took office in May, pitched the reopening as part of a plan to transform the country into a regional energy hub.
"The closure of the refinery for seven years has led to degradation of the units and supporting utilities and off-sites. However, the committee concluded that the newer plants, which were part of the gasoline optimisation programme (GOP), were in relatively good condition," the ministry said.
"The report also identifies the significance of remedial works on the new ultra-low sulphur diesel (ULSD)1 plant, which has not been commissioned, but which is important to refinery economics given the regional and extra-regional demand for ULSD and the move to increasingly stringent sulphur specifications in refined products," the ministry added.

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¹Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel (ULSD) is a variant of traditional or "normal" diesel fuel that is mostly stripped of its sulfur content. It was created in response to a number of regulatory actions aimed at reducing diesel fuel emissions

(Source: Bnamericas)