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More than six years af­ter the clo­sure of the Guaracara Re­fin­ery, res­i­dents and busi­ness own­ers in fence­line com­mu­ni­ties are fi­nal­ly see­ing a glim­mer of hope for, what they say, would be a bet­ter qual­i­ty of life.

This re­newed op­ti­mism came from the an­nounce­ment by act­ing Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young on Feb­ru­ary 27 that Oan­do PLC has been cho­sen as the pre­ferred bid­der for the lease of the re­fin­ery.

More than 5,000 work­ers lost their jobs and busi­ness­es were ei­ther crip­pled or down­sized when Petrotrin closed its doors on No­vem­ber 30, 2018.