WILLEMSTAD - Curaçao has rejected the China Huayang Economics and Trade Group as a candidate to take over the operation of the Isla refinery.
The Chinese company has presented itself as an interested party. The conversations were interrupted after it became clear that Huayang wants to appoint one person of whom Curaçao has bad memories. They wanted to appoint Bingyan Chen, who was previously head of Guandong Zhenrong, which negotiated with the refinery a few years ago.
That Chinese company, too, could not live up to the beautiful stories it told the Curaçao authorities. Intelligence and security services have been warning for some time that China is trying to increase its influence in the Caribbean through corporate takeovers.
Curaçao has only a short time to find a new operator for the dying Isla. At the end of the year, the lease contract with the Venezuelan state oil company PdVSA expires. Allegedly there are three or four other candidates.