PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC- Former prime minister Stuart Young is calling on the Trinidad and Tobago government to confirm whether or not one of the largest global methanol producers, Methanex, plans to shut down its operations here.

In a statement posted on his Facebook page, Young, a former energy and energy industries minister, said that the closure follows the shutdown of the plants of one of the largest global fertilizer companies, Nutrien.

“These shutdowns are due to the lack of confidence in the current government and their change in our gas allocation policy based on ignorance and a lack of understanding of how to manage the energy sector properly,” Young wrote.

He said that liquified natural gas (LNG), ammonia, and methanol are cyclical commodities, and diverting gas from our Ammonia and Methanol producers at Pt Lisas to ALNG because of temporarily higher LNG prices is shortsighted and bad policy.

“When these plants close and leave, it will result in job losses, lost FOREX earnings, shutting down of service companies, and a lack of future investments in Trinidad and Tobago,” Young said, questioning whether Energy Minister Dr. Roodal Moonilal is aware of the situation.

Over the last weekend, the Trinidad Guardian newspaper reported that Methanex is raising doubts about the company’s continued operations here following years of gas curtailment and recent moves by the wholly state-owned National Gas Company (NGC) to increase the price of natural gas to the sector.

The chief executive officer of the Canada-based company, Rich Sumner, said it is considering “all possible outcomes,” including idling its producing methanol plant or entering into a short-term gas contract.

“We’re considering the full range of outcomes through those discussions, including a short-term deal as well as the potential to have to idle the plants. It’ll come down to those NGC discussions,” said the Methanex president.

He said in the short term, Trinidad and Tobago “is an extremely tight gas market, with LNG, ammonia and methanol, all operating below the nameplate capacity,” and as a result of that tightness, a great deal will come down to the commercial discussions between Methanex and NGC.

Sumner said the company is looking longer term in Trinidad and Tobago and at the options that may arise in the future.

“But we do think any new gas from Venezuela is quite a ways out and also carries risk on whether it can ever flow to methanol economically. So there’s a lot for us to consider there, but yeah, we would look at the short term. If we can’t get the short and the medium term to work together, we’re also having to look at other outcomes out of those discussions (with NGC),” said Sumner.

Methanex invested in two methanol plants in T&T called Atlas and Titan. The company idled its Atlas plant, which it owned 63.1 percent of, in September 2024 and restarted the Titan facility, which is 100 percent owned by the Canadian company.