Young: NiQuan doesn't have permission to reopen

ENERGY Minister Stuart Young said the granting of approval to NiQuan Energy Limited to restart its plant and equipment does not rest with the Environmental Management Authority (EMA). He said his ministry has not given the company permission to resume operations.

Responding to a question from Pointe-a-Pierre MP David Lee about NiQuan’s decision to restart its plant on April 22, Young said work was continuing on the report into the investigation of the explosion on April 7, 2021.

“The authority to grant approval to NiQuan to restart its plant and equipment rests with the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries and the Occupational Health and Safety Agency (OSHA). An investigation team has completed an investigation and analysis of the incident that occurred.

"There has recently been a request for an exchange of information by the ministry for NiQuan and I understand the provision of the information requested or a subset of it to the ministry, so the teams are working on it, and working on it to ensure from an MEEI point of view that it is safe for the plant to restart.

The ministry, he said, has not given NiQuan permission to restart its plant and only when it is satisfied from an engineering point of view, that it is safe to restart, they will so indicate to NiQuan the permission to do so.

Young said he could not say whether the full report would be released to the public once completed.

“I am sure at the time when they cross that safety hurdle, the government will be in a position to tell the population some of the findings but to give a commitment at this stage with a private entity with proprietary information, confidential information, etc., to put that into the public domain is not something I am prepared to commit to.”