Roget to Govt on Patriotic rejection: Take your time

Head of the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU) Ancel Roget is calling on Government to reconstitute the independent Cabinet-appointed evaluation committee to work with Patriotic Energies and Technologies Co Ltd on the path forward with regard to purchasing Petrotrin's closed refinery.

Roget made the call on Sunday, one day after Government rejected the latest proposal from the OWTU-owned company for the refinery.

Roget spoke at a press conference at the union’s headquarters at Circular Road in San Fernando.

"We believe it is an opportune time that we can call back in that evaluation committee to evaluate the latest proposal. It will be an objective approach to look through thoroughly, all the responses," Roget suggested.

In June 2019, Cabinet appointed an evaluation committee, headed by Vishnu Dhanpaul, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Finance.

Roget believes the ministerial committee did not have enough time to properly evaluate the latest proposal sent on Thursday at 10.07 pm.

"Given the deadline set by the Prime Minister that having regard to the proposal, it is our respectful view that they (ministerial team) did not afford themselves enough time to go through comprehensively all of the tenets of that proposal," Roget said.

"Therefore, they would not have afforded themselves a proper response by the deadline yesterday (Saturday)."

On Saturday at a virtual press conference hosted by the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries, Energy Minister Franklin Khan identified three key issues in the complex negotiation. They related to the purchase price financing, restart financing and the first priority lien on the assets.

Roget responded that Patriotic satisfied all three issues. Lien, he said, is the hold that a financial institution would have on an asset. The union leader referred to the company’s latest proposal sent on October 29 to the ministerial committee.

"That offer addressed the challenge with their internal financing and the prioritisation of lien issues. We did not fold our arms or throw our hands in the air in despair.

"Because of the soundness of the work we have done since this acquisition process begun, we went back to access the financing to take care of the issue of prioritisation of the lien. "

On September 28, the Prime Minister gave the end of October as the deadline for parties to agree to final closure of the acquisition process.

The announcement of the rejection left Patriotic surprised.

Roget recalled that after a meeting on October 21 with the ministerial committee to resolve the unique challenges, Patriotic consulted with its international team.

"We engaged one of the top ten investment banks in the world. They found soundness with our proposal, and they agreed to support us," Roget said.

He promised to reveal the names and other information about the international investors "at the appropriate time."

Like Khan, Roget said both parties were bound by non-disclosure agreements and could not divulge specific information.

In 2018, the government restructured Petrotrin to form Trinidad Petroleum Holdings Ltd (TPHL). It now has four subsidiaries – Heritage Petroleum Co Ltd (HPTL), Paria Fuel Trading Co Ltd, Guaracara Refinery Ltd and Petrotrin.

Roget gave a chronology of events starting from August 2019 when Patriotic submitted a bid to acquire the Pointe-a-Pierre refinery with a US$700 million up-front payment.

On September 20, 2019, Finance Minister Colm Imbert announced in Parliament that Patriotic was the preferred bidder and it was given an offer of a deferred payment, which included a three-year moratorium plus ten years to pay the purchase price at a fair market value interest rate. He also offered a ten-point condition to be answered in a month.

Roget recalled that on October 4 last year, Patriotic met with the Cabinet-appointed evaluation committee to discuss the terms and requirements for the ten conditions. Patriotic later submitted its response within the one-month deadline.

On July 14, 2020, Patriotic and TPHL teams met to conclude negotiations to finalise the asset-purchase agreement. Three days later, Patriotic was first alerted that TPHL had major difficulties getting over some internal financing issues related to the Finance Minister's offer.

On August 28, attorneys representing TPHL confirmed that there were major challenges with their internal financing, which may be insurmountable based on the Minister of Finance's offer in September last year.

He said Patriotic had several concerns relating to "this rigorous and prolonged process."

Roget claimed Patriotic had to pay tens of millions of US dollars to produce several documents. Those include a comprehensive business plan, detailed feasibility studies and detailed market studies, which have information about new markets that Petrotrin never explored.

"All these documents are now in the hands of the TPHL team and board," Roget said.

Commenting on the two other bidders, Beowulf and Klesh, Roget said: "They are not local. I think charity begins at home and because we did the work, this work must not be allowed to go in vain. We should be given a fair opportunity to see this effort through to the end."