Dear Mr. Scardaville,
In order to put things straight in the correct context with history:
A. Klesch Company would have never passed the set operator search criteria by RdK in July 2020 … and the end of the cooperation with Klesch had nothing to do with the newly set criteria by RdK either. Klesch was simply not qualified from the start for 4 reasons:
1. The refinery margins have to stay in Curacao
2. Klesch had a very bad reputation in the market, quoted as raider
3. Klesch had no experience in the Americas in marketing and
4. Klesch came with no money to invest in upgrading and updating the refinery. In summary: Klesch did not come with money to Curacao, Klesch wanted to take money out of Curacao
So your No.1 criteria for the Isla refinery operator must be:
To keep the refinery margins in Curacao. Don’t let them go!
B. The Curacao Government put a devastating signal to the International Oil Market by offering this functioning oil facility up for sale of $1. This means the message: “Come everybody take the junk!” First result you can see in the 57 applications to aquire Aruba Refinery – I see same inflation numbers to happen in Curacao after the set RdK deadline.
C. Valero in Aruba (refinery expert, operating 15 refineries) spent two years of intensive search from 2013 to 2015 to find a buyer for the ailing facility. To no avail. Aruba Government who took over the facility for $1 in exchange for release from tax- and environmental- liabilities, finally found the financially crippled Venezuelan PDVSA affiliate Citgo company, which was short on capital from the start. The refinery revamp took appropriately long and finally failed.
D. Mr. Werner Wiels, MDPT Curacao, published in a glossy brochure in 2016 that there are quote: “more than 16 investors interested in financing refinery modernization”, unquote. Where are they?
The only common sense answer to this historic circumstantial reality is the Isla workers’ takeover as proposed and organized by GeoPetroleum Company N.V. Curacao – in substitution and absence of Curacao Unions –. Trinidad at Point-a-Pitre Refinery is going the same way with their workers’ takeover – well organized by their Unions – as the sole solution and viable option after public bidding failed (including Klesch). They just announced the re-opening of their refinery for the 3rd quarter of 2020 under their workers’ takeover control…
Mr. Ed Scardaville in Houston, we recommend that you adjust your search criteria, or you will end like Werner Wiels in Curacao and RdA Aruba in 2016. However, the search is the goal and very lucrative for individuals (we hear $200 million so far), but not for the nation and it’s people as a whole.
$200 million in PM’s cashier more right now, would be very helpful in post-Corona times … and PM’s negotiations with Kingdom Relations Secretary Dr. Raymond Knops would have a better stance …
However, the workers’ takeover is – the only viable solution – to save Isla for the workers and the society in Curacao, as the one and only calculable weighing economic factor left on the island after Corona. $600+ million in lost refinery margins so far during the Isla standstill since 2018 are not peanuts, are they? This damage to the Curacao economy is totally homemade and avoidable, hence unnecessary.
