Espinet: Petrotrin report should be complete in new year

A report on the future of state-owned oil company Petrotrin is expected to be presented to government early in the New Year.

In an interview yesterday, Petrotrin chairman Wilfred Espinet declined comment, however, on whether the company could experience a turnaround even as a review of the operations of Petrotrin was laid in the Lower House recently.

That report said the poor condition of the company’s assets coupled with a workforce which was losing its technical competence through attrition, is “a recipe for collapse.” “It is unprofitable and the outlook is for a worsening of its operations unless there is a capital injection,” the report said. adding that capital injection was needed for completion of the ultra-low sulphur plant, increased oil production and for improving asset integrity.

Asked about that report, Espinet said that committee had been mandated to propose a restructuring exercise, though he said it did not have the ability to perform the task in the proposed time frame.

But, he said, “Right now the board of Petrotrin is deep in trying to put together a proposal so that it will be presented to government and the population as a whole.” He added that it would be “premature to make any pronouncements on it because we are in the midst of it.

“We have anticipated that it will be completed by the end of this month to present to government by the beginning of next year,” he said.

Asked whether he thinks the company can be turned around, he said, “I don’t want to make a determination on that. I think I want to wait until we have completed this exercise. We are deep into it, we have a lot of people working on it.”