MANY former Petrotrin workers say the past seven years have been filled with mental anguish, financial instability and crushed hopes. And even as Prime Minister Stuart Young announced that Oando PLC – the Nigerian company that is the preferred bidder for the refinery – will seek to rehire them if operations restart, they still feel no sense of ease.

Petrotrin was shut down in November 2018. The government maintains, though, that it did not “close down” the company and that it was restructured to Heritage Petroleum Company Ltd.

Fast-forward to 2025 – the government chooses Oando for the lease of the Pointe-a-Pierre refinery as it looks to restart operations. Young said the company will not bring in foreign workers for the refinery and that the government made a negotiation for former refinery workers to be hired.

Ex-employees speak

Keegan Denny worked at the refinery for 12 years as a senior operator. Being the breadwinner in his family, he was left distraught and anxious.

“The first few months were really difficult. (It felt like) a death because there was mourning, separation and anguish…

“I hoped to retire there. I was building a career, I was going to do my master’s degree in 2020, getting a higher position, moving up,” he said before a sigh.

Just a week prior to the official announcement, he began hearing murmurs that operations would cease.

Struggling to secure a new job, while seeing some colleagues get opportunities at other oil and gas companies, he opted to start an agro-business. But then the covid19 pandemic hit and the business never recovered.

He now works as a production supervisor at a local company in the food and beverage industry.

Asked how he feels about Young and Oando’s promise, he said talks about the refinery always resurface before an election.

“You would always see this cycle of having a preferred bidder and then it falls apart. It’s a recurring theme. It just reaches a point where you don’t want to believe anything.”

But even if it does materialise, he said he does not trust that former workers would be rehired.

“It would be great for us but based on the patterns we’ve seen and the promises we’ve heard…”

Clyde Ramesar had worked there for 28-and-a-half years and left as a senior refinery operator as well. He worked in the vacuum distillation and visbreaker units.

He said while the closure was devastating, he had been shy of 50 and so he soon qualified for pension. He said he also got a workable severance package.

“But that in no way justifies the decision that was made because it destroyed too much, too many lives. Simply put, it made no economic sense and it made even less political sense.”

He chose to retire after the closure but noted many of his colleagues struggled to find jobs and their livelihoods were completely destroyed.

“People lost their houses, people are suffering divorce….About two months ago, I had to field a call for somebody who actually put out on social media that he just so fed up and broken that he felt to end his life. I took it upon m