For decades, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s sta­tus as one of the world’s lead­ing ex­porters of methanol and am­mo­nia was a source of pride and a ma­jor con­trib­u­tor to for­eign ex­change earn­ings and gov­ern­ment rev­enue. Methanex’s an­nounce­ment that it will in­def­i­nite­ly idle its Ti­tan methanol plant at Point Lisas from Oc­to­ber is there­fore more than a cor­po­rate de­ci­sion—it is an­oth­er warn­ing about the grow­ing chal­lenges fac­ing the coun­try’s petro­chem­i­cal sec­tor.

The first ma­jor sig­nal came in Oc­to­ber 2025 when Nu­trien an­nounced a con­trolled shut­down of its Trinidad ni­tro­gen op­er­a­tions. The Cana­di­an com­pa­ny cit­ed a lack of re­li­able and eco­nom­i­cal­ly priced nat­ur­al gas, say­ing the sit­u­a­tion had re­duced the prof­itabil­i­ty of its op­er­a­tions over an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od.

Methanex’s ex­pla­na­tion car­ries a sim­i­lar mes­sage. The com­pa­ny not­ed that its Ti­tan plant is no longer con­tribut­ing mean­ing­ful­ly to earn­ings or free cash flow. Both state­ments sug­gest that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s op­er­a­tions are be­com­ing less im­por­tant with­in the glob­al port­fo­lios of these multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies.

Yet, those op­er­a­tions re­main im­por­tant to this coun­try.

Ac­cord­ing to Min­istry of En­er­gy da­ta for 2024, Nu­trien’s four am­mo­nia plants ex­port­ed one mil­lion tonnes of am­mo­nia, ac­count­ing for 31 per cent of the na­tion’s to­tal am­mo­nia ex­ports of 3.23 mil­lion tonnes. Methanex’s At­las and Ti­tan plants ex­port­ed 1.37 mil­lion tonnes of methanol, rep­re­sent­ing al­most a quar­ter of the coun­try’s to­tal methanol ex­ports of 5.55 mil­lion tonnes.

Be­yond ex­ports, these com­pa­nies gen­er­at­ed sub­stan­tial eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty through tax­es, util­i­ty pay­ments, port charges, salaries, Na­tion­al In­sur­ance con­tri­bu­tions and spend­ing with lo­cal con­trac­tors.

The Cen­tral Bank and Min­istry of Fi­nance should there­fore pro­vide a clear as­sess­ment of what the loss of six ma­jor petro­chem­i­cal plants means for the econ­o­my.

Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Lar­ry Howai sought to re­as­sure the pub­lic this week, ar­gu­ing that for­eign ex­change earn­ings and state rev­enues would not suf­fer sig­nif­i­cant­ly be­cause the nat­ur­al gas cur­rent­ly sup­plied to Methanex can be redi­rect­ed else­where.

“There will not be a tighter ra­tioning,” he said, not­ing that di­vert­ing the gas could pro­duce high­er earn­ings for both re­ceiv­ing com­pa­nies and the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny.

In the short term, that as­sess­ment may prove cor­rect. Much of the gas could be redi­rect­ed to At­lantic LNG, pro­vid­ing a rel­a­tive­ly quick source of ex­port earn­ings and rev­enue. How­ev­er, shift­ing gas from one cus­tomer to an­oth­er does not solve the coun­try’s un­der­ly­ing prob­lem.

The fun­da­men­tal is­sue is com­pet­i­tive­ness. T&T’s gas sup­ply is in­creas­ing­ly less at­trac­tive than that avail­able in com­pet­ing ju­ris­dic­tions such as the Unit­ed States and Cana­da, both in terms of re­li­a­bil­i­ty and cost.

While high­er gas prices may strength­en NGC’s rev­enues in the short run, they may al­so en­cour­age ad­di­tion­al petro­chem­i­cal pro­duc­ers to re­con­sid­er their in­vest­ments in Point Lisas. That would car­ry long-term con­se­quences for em­ploy­ment, in­dus­tri­al ac­tiv­i­ty and eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion.

In this con­text, Methanex’s de­ci­sion should not be viewed as an iso­lat­ed busi­ness ad­just­ment. It is a warn­ing that T&T must ad­dress the re­li­a­bil­i­ty, avail­abil­i­ty and pric­ing of nat­ur­al gas if it hopes to pre­serve the down­stream sec­tor that has been a cor­ner­stone of the econ­o­my for decades. As com­pa­nies as­sess their fu­ture plans ahead of an­tic­i­pat­ed Venezue­lan gas sup­plies, main­tain­ing the com­pet­i­tive­ness of Point Lisas should be a na­tion­al pri­or­i­ty.