May 2017 Financial News

Petrotrin saddled with massive debt

May 12, 2017

PETROTRIN president Fitzroy Harewood has admitted the stateowned oil company is facing a huge debt “bullet” in 2019, and was working with the Ministry of Finance to service that loan. “We have a serious issue with liquidity management because we are servicing significant loans,” Harewood said, adding, “we have been meeting our loan commitments to date but we have a huge bullet to take in 2019, and are working with the Minister of Finance around that.” He was addressing a luncheon hosted by the Energy Chamber at Cara Suites Hotel and Conference Centre, Claxton Bay on Wednesday.

Harewood said Petrotrin’s debts accumulated after the company invested heavily in the refinery over the last ten years and the debt burden was something, “it is still dealing with and one where we need to manage.” He said the company had resumed bunkering operations using a leased double hull barge and was working at acquiring its own barge to sell bunker fuel in the Gulf of Paria. Harewood also responded to a question about how the company could become involved in the huge oil finds in Guyana saying while Petrotrin was “not averse” to getting into the Guyanese market, he said this requires a government to government deal. “Our refinery is processing 46,000 barrels of local crude. We want to produce less fuel oil and more high value products so the crude we pick for the refinery is designed to give us the optimum product output so we pick crude based on that,” he said.

Source:
Newsday
Friday May 12, 2017

http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,243529.html