PRIME Minister Dr. Keith Rowley was in a triumphant mood that day in March 2021.
Rowley trumpeted the NiQuan Energy Gas-to-Liquids (GTL) project as “a prime example of the successful development of the country’s export potential of higher valued products…”
He hailed the Pointe-a-Pierre plant as “a triumph, a resounding success.”
The launch of the production facility was also redemption of sorts for the Rowley Administration, and the Prime Minister embraced it as a pet project.
The Government had earlier withdrawn legal action against the then-Petrotrin Board of Directors, headed by Malcolm Jones, which had constructed the GTL plant against sound legal and financial advice.
The project had gone belly-up under Jones’ watch, and taxpayers lost an estimated $3 billion.
The Kamla Persad-Bissessar Government took legal action against Jones for a breach of fiduciary duties.
The Rowley Administration dropped the case and reinstated Jones to PNM glory, handing him major national and university awards and appointing him to Cabinet’s Standing Energy Committee.
When NiQuan showed interest in the virtual scrap iron, the Government jumped at the offer and negotiated a peppercorn US $35 million deal.
The company’s boss – “chief visionary officer,” he was titled – was Ainsley Gill, well known to the Government, having served as a lobbyist in Washington for a total sum of some $15 million.
Gill was in equally exultant spirit at the launch, pledging to turn the plant into a pioneer in clean energy.
At the opening ceremony, Rowley had touted NiQuan’s “good business plan,” but within months the company ran into financial trouble and reportedly owes taxpayers $127 million for natural gas supplies.
The operations sputtered to a shutdown.
Even more intriguingly, financiers are now seeking to remove the “chief visionary officer,” who, in turn, is fighting back.
There has been much fallout, with former associates making legal claims for breach of promises.
David Small, a former vice president, picked up an award for $20 million.
NiQuan is indebted to local and international financiers for some $300 million.
On top of that, a pipe-fitter Allanlane Ramkissoon died in an industrial accident in June.
That ran the company into a standoff with occupational and health authorities.
In a frantic plea to creditors, Gill said more than 70 jobs are on the line.
Even while fighting to hold onto his job, Gill sought to raise fresh capital through an appeal to shareholders.
That did not achieve much, and the company reached out to Rowley, which did not bear fruit.
Two months ago, the Prime Minister altered his tune, saying: “The Government would have assisted in every possible way to see that NiQuan would be successful but at the end of the day public interest and private interest did not converge.”
He said the Government “cooperated in introducing to our economy some element of economic expansion.”
Two and a half years after his delighted launch of the facility, Rowley has essentially washed his hands off the botched project.
NiQuan has added to the ugly landscape of collapsed Pointe-a-Pierre plants, a sad legacy of poor decision-making and waste of billions of precious taxpayers’ money.
Like the previous version of the project, under Jones, NiQuan is a concoction of flawed executive and operational management.
Like the refinery and adjoining operations, the once much-touted gas-to-liquids venture is likely to eventually get into the waiting hands of scrap iron dealers.
The futile project is yet another appalling example of sqandermania with the public’s purse.
