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Work moving on at La Brea plant

PORT SPAIN
Trinidad & Tobago Express
Petroleumworldtt.com 10 14 09

Government is moving ahead with plans to build an aluminium smelter on the Union Industrial Estate in La Brea, although the Appeal Court is yet to decided on whether it can.

There is ongoing legal action on whether permission will be given to allow construction of the $703 million smelter.

But on Wednesday, Minister of Energy, Conrad Enill, told media at the World Gas Conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina, that the Government was in talks with a Brazilian company to build the smelter plant.

Enill's assurance was given in an interview with Bloomberg.com, a respected financial information website.

Government was left to foot the bill for the smelter after Venezuela-based aluminum producer Sural, which had a 40 per cent stake in the Alutrint aluminum smelter project, pulled out of the venture earlier this year.

Enill told international media, "We are still in discussions with the Brazilian partner who has requested that we go ahead with it and we would make an investment decision by the second quarter of next year."

He also told reporters that although aluminium prices had dropped by 35 per cent from what it was in the third quarter of last year, the lower prices would not stop the Government from pursuing the smelter.

The World Gas Conference is described as the most important global event for the gas industry, and is the culmination of three years of studies and programmes undertaken by 500 of the leading gas experts. The conference ends today.

Work on the Alutrint smelter was stopped after a June 16 High Court ruling by Justice Mira Dean-Armorer that quashed the EMA's Certificate of Environmental Clearance (CEC) to Alutrint.

Dean-Armorer's ruling stated that the EMA had failed to consider the cumulative impact of the smelter complex on the Union Industrial Estate, that they failed to enquire fully from Alutrint what they planned to do with the spent pot liners, and that there was lack of proper public consultation with the people of La Brea. Hearing of the EMA's appeal to the ruling was heard yesterday and will continue tomorrow.

Story by Camille Bethel from Trinidad & Tobago Express
cbethel@trinidadexpress.com

Trinidad & Tobago Express
October 9Th 2009

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