Government signs MOU to revive Point Lisas steel plant

Ke­jan Haynes

The Gov­ern­ment has signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MOU) with Pin­na­cle Steel and Vana­di­um Cor­po­ra­tion to be­gin dis­cus­sions on the re­fur­bish­ment, recom­mis­sion­ing and op­er­a­tion of the for­mer iron and steel plant at Point Lisas.

The agree­ment, signed on Fri­day by For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment, es­tab­lish­es a frame­work for fur­ther dis­cus­sions and due dili­gence. Pin­na­cle Steel and Vana­di­um Cor­po­ra­tion re­cent­ly com­plet­ed the ac­qui­si­tion of the plant.

Ac­cord­ing to the Gov­ern­ment, the project goes be­yond the re­sump­tion of steel pro­duc­tion and could po­si­tion Trinidad and To­ba­go as a pro­duc­er of vana­di­um, a strate­gic met­al used in aero­space and de­fence ap­pli­ca­tions, in­clud­ing mil­i­tary air­craft.

It said that if the project ad­vances, Trinidad and To­ba­go has the po­ten­tial to sup­ply up to an es­ti­mat­ed 50 per cent of Unit­ed States de­mand for vana­di­um.

The Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Port De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (PLIPDE­CO), which owns the prop­er­ty and the lands on which the plant is lo­cat­ed, is al­so a par­ty to the MOU and is ex­pect­ed to play an in­te­gral role in the project's de­vel­op­ment.

The steel ini­tia­tive is one of three MOUs signed be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and Unit­ed States or­gan­i­sa­tions on Fri­day. The oth­ers re­late to pro­posed large-scale da­ta cen­tre and ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence in­fra­struc­ture projects.

The Gov­ern­ment said the three ini­tia­tives, if they progress be­yond the cur­rent frame­work and due dili­gence stage, rep­re­sent po­ten­tial in­vest­ment of more than US$5 bil­lion and could gen­er­ate more than 5,000 skilled and se­mi-skilled jobs, while sup­port­ing the coun­try's tran­si­tion to high­er-val­ue in­dus­tries.