Eight years after the People’s National Movement (PNM) administration decided to close state-owned refinery Petrotrin, businesses in San Fernando are still feeling the effects of the shutdown.
The refinery’s closure saw hundreds of workers being placed on the breadline, with little to no purchasing power to support the businesses in San Fernando that relied on them to keep afloat.
Speaking in the House of Representatives on November 14, 2018, then-Finance minister Colm Imbert said all previous efforts to redesign the business model at Petrotrin had failed.
The United National Congress (UNC) administration campaigned on promises to reopen the refinery before their April 2025 general election victory.
Govt’s promises keeping hope alive in San Fernando
Now, business owners in San Fernando are counting on this administration to keep its promise.
The owner of Suri’s High Fashion at Carlton Centre, San Fernando, tells News 19 TT although his earnings have fallen by about 50 per cent in the last year, he is holding on to hope that there will be a turnaround in the economy soon.
“What keeping the dream alive is that the ‘Dragon Gas deal’ will boost back the economy, create jobs and it will trickle back down to me. Even the restart of the Petrotrin refinery, it’s all these things that I am keeping in focus that may or might happen that can turn around your sales,” he said.
“We keeping hope that these things will come to pass at some point.”
The owner of Stay Fly clothing store on High Street, San Fernando, also shares that hope.
“If they reopen back Petrotrin, it will have more jobs for people in the South area, things real hard for people right now and plenty customers talking about it.
“If they do that (reopen Petrotrin) and hire back people, San Fernando could shine up again, it will really help the economy.”
Business Chamber: Energy deals will help business eventually
President of the Greater San Fernando Area Chamber of Commerce Kiran Singh says Petrotrin’s potential reopening and other energy deals in the works could signal better days ahead for business in the city.
But he said that relief will take some time.
“Things will turn around, this year is going to be a very challenging one for us, we know that.
“The offshore fields that are being talked about, the agreements with Venezuela, the Dragon field, the Manatee, these things will come on stream; we just need to be patient, make some sacrifices,” Singh told News 19 at his RRM Plaza, High Street, office.
“When it does come on stream, we estimating next year, year after, the economy will start turning around.”
He said for the time being, people need to be careful about their spending. But although he urged caution, Singh said Trinidad and Tobago is resilient.
“We have been through worse, the last one being the Covid (pandemic) and we survived that.”
As for his members in San Fernando, Singh lamented the challenges being faced by some to keep up with high rental costs amid low sales.
“Some landlords aren’t as accommodating I think to the situation we all have to live in and they can sometimes afford to adjust their rent sometimes too, to match the capacity of the sales of the tenant to which they let.”
He said some businesses were also failing because those running them did not proper research.
“Its a combination of elements when you see an empty storefront, sometimes people go in a business and they don’t do their adequate research into what they should be selling. You don’t sell what you want to sell, you sell what the public wants to buy from you.
“Opening a business is a learning process, it’s like you minding a baby, from day one you have to see about it, you have to be there and make a sacrifice, you can’t leave it up to somebody else.”
Mayor: Online shopping causing slow sales
San Fernando Mayor Robert Parris tells News 19 TT the popularity of online shopping is one of the major causes of the business decline.
He said he has discussed this many times with Singh and other business owners in San Fernando.
About the prospect of Petrotrin’s reopening and the government’s ambitious plans for the San Fernando Waterfront, Parris was hopeful. He said San Fernado would welcome any new projects or investment that can stimulate the economy.
For his part, he has been advocating for twinning San Fernando with a Chinese province.
San Fernando has been twinned with La Trinité, Martinique, since 1989, a year after the municipality was upgraded from borough to city status.
Parris said there were also plans to create a Chinatown on Mucurapo Street, San Fernando, to allow business owners to purchase stocks without foreign exchange.
“What we were trying to do was create a direct supply chain because the businesses in San Fernando, how they bring in stuff from the port and if we have a forex shortage, certainly it would affect their ability and their operations of their businesses,” Parris said.
“What we wanted to do was create a regional supply chain in the city of San Fernando, emulating from the Chinatown experience, which the Chinese community were fully behind and they felt like it was a better opportunity.”
But that plan has stalled. Parris said with the change of government, his plans to travel to China in May of this year were also cancelled.
“I would have written to the minister of Foreign and Caricom Affairs on more than one occasion to indicate where we were and this was not a PNM plan or a UNC plan, it was a San Fernando plan.
“We had persons of all political ilk and business acumen that was backing this plan because if you look at the ability to do trade, the Chinese economy is on par with the TT dollar and that would certainly dealt with the forex shortage.”
Italian firm enters US$50M contract to evaluate refinery
The Oilfield Workers Trade Union(OWTU) has been pushing for a restart of the refinery’s operations for years.
When the then-PNM government announced plans to sell the refinery in 2019, the union formed Patriotic Energies Services Co. Ltd and bid several times for control of Petrotrin.
Those bids were unsuccessful.
On March 25, 2026, an Italian engineering group announced it had signed a US$50 contract for a rehabilitation study on the refinery.
The company, Maire, said the contract was awarded its subsidiary, Tecnimont Services.The company said the study’s objective is to “upgrade the 150,000 barrels per day Guaracara Refinery Complex, supporting the local economy and enhancing skills development.”
The release said Phases 1 and 2 of the study are expected to be completed by early 2027.
In a release on March 26, Patriotic announced the partnership.
“This collaboration marks a significant milestone in our ongoing efforts to rehabilitate and restart the Guaracara Refinery at Pointe-a-Pierre, as we advance our proposal to the government,” the company said in a press release.
“By leveraging the global engineering and technical expertise of Tecnimont, we are strengthening our operational capacity to restore this critical national asset to functionality to the benefit of the people of Trinidad and Tobago.”
Patriotic said it was bound by confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements and could not disclose the specific financial and technical terms of the partnership.
“This partnership and approach will NOT cost the government $1 Dollar, and definitely NO government guarantee is required,” the company added.
Whether the mayor’s plans, the government’s waterfront project, or Petrotrin’s reopening can revitalise San Fernando is yet to be seen.