Americas News
Petroleum Company Aims for New Panama Bunkering Operation
The Petroleum Company of Trinidad and Tobago Ltd. (Petrotrin) is planning to expand its bunkering operations outside of its home country while also shifting production toward low-sulfur fuels, Hemraj Ramdath, the company's vice president of strategy and business development, told Business Executive magazine.
Ramdath said the state-owned company is in discussions with companies based in Panama over establishing facilities there to take advantage of the Panama Canal expansion.
"We do about 25 percent of the bunker of all the ships passing through Trinidad but we believe we could do far better," he said.
"We are limited right now because we have just the one vessel so we are looking at acquiring another tanker or a larger vessel to do some bunkering outside of Trinidad."
Ramdath said establishing a bunkering business in Panama would give the company a base to expand into other areas in the large market, including gasoline and aviation fuel.
The company is also moving to improve its refining ability to produce higher-value products as it is now supplying an unsustainable amount of fuel oil, about 50,000 barrels per day (bpd), resulting in a price that is sometimes less than the crude price.
"We are now also looking at a bottom-of-the-barrel solution – the heavy end if you like – to see how we can better utilise that fuel oil and convert it into higher value product," Ramdath said.
"This will mean further investment of up to $2 billion over five to six years but once we have finished that the entire plant will be a world class facility and tailor made to meet our goals."
Petrotrin is already upgrading its refinery to improve its "top-of-the-barrel" products, emphasising production of low-sulfur diesel.
"Our ultra low sulphur diesel (ULSD) plant, will come on stream at the end of this year, and it will give us nice clean low sulphur diesel that meets the stringent new diesel quality specifications covering sulphur and aromatics content," Ramdath said.
The company now produces 45,000 bpd of crude oil and 180 million cubic feet of gas, and its refinery processes around 170,000 bpd.
Petrotrin has been involved in a conflict over the entry of a Bunkers International subsidiary into the Trinidad and Tobago bunkering market.
