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Res­i­dents of Mara­bel­la are ea­ger­ly an­tic­i­pat­ing the re­open­ing of the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery as the Gov­ern­ment ad­vances talks with a slate of in­ter­na­tion­al and re­gion­al in­vestors, rais­ing cau­tious op­ti­mism that South Trinidad could be on the cusp of long-await­ed eco­nom­ic re­vival.

Speak­ing to the Sun­day Guardian, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal re­vealed ne­go­ti­a­tions are un­der­way with sev­er­al ma­jor play­ers, in­clud­ing Chevron of the Unit­ed States, the Na­tion­al Chi­na Off­shore Oil Cor­po­ra­tion, Nige­ria-based Oan­do, In­di­an Oil Cor­po­ra­tion and the Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union’s Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies and Tech­nolo­gies, which has sub­mit­ted a new pro­pos­al for con­sid­er­a­tion.

The re­fin­ery, shut­tered in 2018, is now tar­get­ed for a phased restart lat­er this year, with Mooni­lal sig­nalling that at least two plants will come on stream be­fore the end of the year.