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For­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young is warn­ing that on­go­ing chal­lenges in the en­er­gy sec­tor could have far-reach­ing ef­fects on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s econ­o­my and rep­u­ta­tion if not care­ful­ly man­aged.

He said the im­passe be­tween the Na­tion­al En­er­gy Cor­po­ra­tion (NEC) and Nu­trien re­mains un­re­solved and is al­ready af­fect­ing the lo­cal sup­ply of car­bon diox­ide (CO₂), a key in­put for sev­er­al in­dus­tries, in­clud­ing the man­u­fac­tur­ing of car­bon­at­ed bev­er­ages. A pro­longed dis­rup­tion, he not­ed, could im­pact pro­duc­tion both lo­cal­ly and across the re­gion.

Young said the coun­try’s petro­chem­i­cal in­dus­try—cov­er­ing am­mo­nia, methanol and urea—op­er­ates on nar­row mar­gins and de­pends on sta­ble, pre­dictable pol­i­cy de­ci­sions to re­main com­pet­i­tive. He cau­tioned that un­cer­tain­ty sur­round­ing en­er­gy costs and port op­er­a­tions could in­flu­ence in­vest­ment de­ci­sions by multi­na­tion­al firms.