Young: Nutrien closure could have been avoided

For­mer prime min­is­ter and en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young says Nu­trien’s de­ci­sion to close its Trinidad op­er­a­tions was un­nec­es­sary, ar­gu­ing that an arrange­ment could have been reached to keep the Point Lisas plant op­er­at­ing while al­low­ing both Nu­trien and the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) to re­main prof­itable.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Young said: “This is an un­nec­es­sary clo­sure as it is pos­si­ble to find what is called a ‘sweet spot’ where both NGC and Nu­trien would be able to make mon­ey and to have con­tin­ued plant op­er­a­tions and gas sales at a prof­it.”

Nu­trien an­nounced the clo­sure of its Trinidad Ni­tro­gen op­er­a­tions fol­low­ing a re­view of its op­tions amid con­tin­ued un­cer­tain­ty over the sup­ply and cost of nat­ur­al gas. Young re­ject­ed the sug­ges­tion that the clo­sure was linked to con­cerns about the wider fi­nan­cial con­se­quences for the State.