OILFIELD Workers Trade Union (OWTU) president general Ancel Roget says citizens would not have had to pay higher fuel prices if former state oil company Petrotrin’s Pointe-a-Pierre refinery was still in operation.

He was speaking during a news conference at the union's San Fernando office on Tuesday.

Recalling the closure of Petrotrin in November 2018, Roget said the OWTU warned the population that the country would feel the effect of the company's closure.

"So said, so done."

He claimed TT has "enough oil to produce fuel for consumption in TT."

Roget also disclosed that the union recently sent a proposal about reactivating idle or abandoned wells which fall under Heritage Petroleum, one of the successor companies formed after Petrotrin's closure four years ago.

He said the union has not received a reply from Imbert to its proposal. Roget added the proposal could see Heritage improving its oil production by 5,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) in the short term and by 10,000 bopd in the longer term.

He reiterated the OWTU's claims that certain people benefitted financially from Petrotrin's closure

In a tweet on Tuesday, Finance Minister Colm Imbert said, "Gasoline is purchased by countries at an ex-refinery price based on the cost of acquiring and processing oil."

In TT, he continued, it costs Government $ 7 billion annually which is sold to drivers for $5 billion.

"The $2 billion difference is paid by taxpayers which could be used for many other purposes."

On April 8 in the House, Imbert rejected claims that Petrotrin's closure resulted in the population having to pay higher fuel prices.

In this context, it is necessary to remind commentators that in 2014, when the refinery was in full operation, the fuel subsidy liability to the government in that year was $7 billion.

“That is what it cost taxpayers of this country to maintain fuel prices at subsidised levels in 2014.”

Before its closure four years ago, he continued, the refinery’s daily throughput of oil was approximately 140,000 bpd.

“This meant that every day that the refinery operated, it was required to purchase 100,000 barrels of imported oil at world market prices, which at today’s prices would require foreign exchange of US$10 million per day to purchase oil.”

Imbert said a team appointed in 2017 to review Petrotrin’s operations and make recommendations for its restructuring, estimated that between 2012 and 2016, the refinery lost up to US$15 on each barrel of oil that it processed, with consistently negative refinery margins.

“Using an average loss of US$8 per barrel of oil processed during this period, this meant that the refinery lost over U$1 million per day in its operations.”

He opined that if the refinery was still operating “not only would there be a huge billion-dollar fuel subsidy liability to contend with, but there would be leakage of US$1 million in foreign exchange per day and a requirement for Petrotrin to find US$10 million a day to purchase oil.” Imbert added, “This is what we evaded by the closure of