OIL PROFESSIONALS LAND MAJOR JOBS ABROAD

THE fifth anniversary of the shutdown of the Petrotrin Pointe-a-Pierre operations is being met with the greatest flight of professionals in Trinidad and Tobago’s modern history.

Many of Petrotrin’s petrochemical and other engineers and other industry professionals have fled to other energy-producing countries, including nearby Guyana and Suriname, and far-off Arab countries and Angola.

Some have also pegged down jobs in the United States, Canada and other hemispheric countries.

The mothballing of several plants at Point Lisas, as a result of the shortage of natural gas feedstock, also threw several professionals on the breadline.

The domestic petrochemical industry currently employs fewer than 8,000 professionals, less than a third of the number a decade ago.

Several displaced engineers and other industry experts have secured well-paying international jobs with major perks that allow them to take their respective families with them.

Despite the global spotlight on fossil fuels produced by oil and gas companies, there are many bountiful and emerging projects across the energy-producing world.

A veteran local industry expert explained that Trinidad and Tobago’s oil and gas professionals are generally skilled and experienced and, therefore, do not have much difficulty in securing jobs.

Several have been recruited through online firms, such as oilandgasjobsearch,com.

Others are getting jobs through former colleagues who are employed with such companies as Exxon, Royal Dutch, Chevron, Total, ConocoPhillips, and Occidental Petroleum.

Experts in logistics, mechanical and project engineering, and health and safety are also in demand, it was revealed.

T&T has been commercially producing oil since 1908, through Trinidad Oilfields Ltd., and this may be the period of the greatest flight of professionals, according to knowledgeable industry figures.

Apart from the displacement of almost 6,000 Petrotrin workers, the shutdown also impacted oil and gas servicing companies and retailers in fence-line communities.

Firms providing well, rigs and platform servicing, and various replacement valves, hoses, flanges, gauges, tubular and other fittings were severely affected.

Several shifted their prime operations to Guyana.

Halliburton, an age-old operator in T&T, has moved to the fellow Caricom country and is a key contractor for ExxonMobil.

Schlumberger has also made Guyana its regional headquarters.

Restaurants, bars, tyre shops, roti shops, stationery stores and other small businesses suffered major slumps in their sales.

Those districts include Pointe-a-Pierre, Marabella, Vistabella, Claxton Bay, Gasparillo, and San Fernando.

The loss of jobs was similar in number to that of the sugar industry two decades ago, according to economists.

A previous PNM administration closed Caroni (1975) Ltd., in 2003 on the premise that the industry was no longer profitable.

Along with the flight of oil and gas professionals, there has also been a sharp fall in the enrolment of such tertiary studies at the University of the West Indies.

But not all former Petrotrin workers have landed safely on their feet.

Some took their severance payments and retired into the sunset.

Many young employees have had difficulties in serving mortgages and car loans and joined the shrinking job market.

A few turned to agriculture and to operating wayside market stalls.

The Pointe-a-Pierre operation, once a thriving hub of Caribbean industrial accomplishment, is now a ghost town, circled by corbeaux, overrun with weeds, and frequented by criminals.

Against that backdrop is the assurance just over five years ago from Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley.

“We are not shutting down Petrotrin,” he stressed, in what has become infamous last words.