The market value of Jamaica’s sole oil refinery Petrojam has dropped by nearly US$100 million in the past 12 years, newly appointed Energy Minister Fayval Williams has revealed.
According to Williams, a valuation conducted in 2006 by an international firm using globally accepted standards placed the value of the 55 year-old refinery at US$126 million.
That was the same year Jamaica and Venezuela signed an agreement which required, among other things, that the South American country carry out a major upgrade of the refinery.
Fast forward to 2018 and, according to Williams, another assessment by the same international firm placed the value of Petrojam at US$34 million.
But Central Manchester MP Peter Bunting has presented a 2017 assessment by the same firm.
In that assessment, Petrojam was valued at US$170 million.
He said that might have been the reason Venezuela was demanding multiple times the figure the Government had proposed as the purchase price for the 49 per cent stake in the refinery.
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