Conrad Enill, Minister of Energy and Energy Industries yesterday announced that he intended to utilise private sector talents to bring about more efficiency within the State sector. Enill said this while delivering the feature address during the ammonia AUM plant commissioning ceremony at Point Lisas. Owned by Methanol Holdings (Trinidad) Ltd, the plant, on which construction began in February 2006, was completed more than three months ahead of schedule on March 30 and within its US$1.7 billion budget.
It was completed in spite of global trends towards escalating project costs, scarcity of technical resources and a high demand for vendor fabrication shop capacity. Describing this achievement as commendable especially within the energy sector, Enill suggested that the initiatives utilised by MHTL be adopted by other industries.
“The formula that you have is certainly effective,” Enill said. “To have a project on time with no cost overruns in this kind of environment requires a special type of talent.” “If we have that (talent) in Trinidad in the private sector, I intend to use it in the State sector.” MHTL chairman Dr Euric Bobb said since its first ammonia production on April 14, the plant has been operating above its outlined capacity and producing over 2000MT of ammonia daily. Bobb said the ammonia plant was the first in a chain of plants that would make up the AUM complex. When the complex is completed within the next few months, many of the nations youth will benefit as it is expected to create 368 permanent, highly skilled jobs for young people.
