The Patriotic Energies and Technologies Company Limited (PETCL), which is owned by the Oilfield Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU) has failed in its bid to secure ownership of the Petrotrin refinery.

“Today, I regret to say that this final proposal does not address the outstanding issues that could lead to a signed contractual agreement. And that is the state of play as we speak,” Energy Minister Franklin Khan said during a press briefing on Saturday.

On Thursday, PETCL submitted its final proposal to government, ahead of the October 31st deadline given by Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley.

But as he addressed the matter on Saturday, Minister Khan said there were three outstanding concerns of government which had not been satisfied. They are the issues of purchase price financing, restart financing and the question of who will be given first priority lean on the asset.

Asked to expound on where the OWTU’s proposal fell short in particular, the Minister declined, saying he was subject to non-disclosure agreements.

“That’s as far as I can possibly go and as far as I am prepared to go,” he said, repeating the three aforementioned issues. 

The Energy Minister affirmed, nevertheless, that government has the opening of the refinery as a priority, and will go back to the drawing board to explore its options now that PETCL has been thrown out of the ring. 

“The government is committed to restarting the refinery with private capital injection, mindful that a restart will have significant positive impact on the economy, on GDP, on employment etc, and (government) will move expeditiously to do so,” he said.

Pressed to provide a timeline in which the public could expect another development regarding the sale, the Energy Minister committed only to saying that government would  “look at its options” and return to the population in the “shortest possible time” when it had “greater clarity on the matter.”