Kamla: Increases at pump will mean Trinidad and Tobago can't celebrate gas price bonanza

AS oil and gas prices soar amidst the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the world sits on the cusp of the greatest oil bonanza since 2008, Opposition leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar is warning of increasing prices at the pump should this trend continue.

Trends around the globe are leading to unprecedented increases in the price of gasoline as the fighting has resulted in massive spikes in the price of Brent Crude and West Texas Intermediate (WTI), which on Sunday were at their highest since 2008.

At the United National Congress (UNC) Virtual Report on Monday, Persad-Bissessar referred to a Reuters report on March 6, which showed in the first few minutes of trade on Sunday, both benchmarks rose to the highest since July 2008, with Brent at US$139.13 a barrel and WTI at US$130.50.

On Tuesday the prices were US$116.52 per barrel of Brent crude oil and WTI US$115.22. However, JP Morgan, a global leader in financial services, was projecting prices as high as US$185 per barrel.

Persad-Bissessar said it was a tragedy this country cannot benefit from this windfall.

“Highest in 14 years,” she said. “We should be celebrating now. Instead, we will be crying, because we don’t refine our own oil any more.

“So you will sell it at a high price – but then guess what will happen? The refined products that you have to import to come back down here – what is going to happen to that? Those prices will go sky high. So we will be facing the price increasing at the pumps when this trend continues.”

The 1.4 million population cannot benefit she said, because of the “bungling” and “incompetence” of Dr Keith Rowley's administration.

“That was our main lifeline – you would call it money, revenue stream– it still remains our only revenue stream, because they have not done anything to diversify the economy.

“They closed the refinery. They put our economy in misery. And as I say, we are going to see, on the verge perhaps, the greatest oil bonanza since 2008 and JP Morgan is correct, the highest that we would have in 40 years.

“The question then is, who stands to lose?

"It is the 1.4 million people in this country. All because of the incompetence of Rowley."