Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says restart­ing the for­mer Petrotrin (Guaracara) re­fin­ery was a cen­tral fo­cus of her bi­lat­er­al meet­ing with Unit­ed States Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio, as T&T seeks to deep­en en­er­gy and se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion with Wash­ing­ton.

The talks took place on the side­lines of the 50th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment in Bas­seterre, St Kitts, where re­gion­al lead­ers gath­ered amid grow­ing geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions and shift­ing al­liances across the Amer­i­c­as.

Speak­ing with re­porters short­ly af­ter the meet­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the dis­cus­sions built on pre­vi­ous en­gage­ments with US of­fi­cials.