Alutrint's chinese labour Connection

By Raffique Shah
Wednesday, June 3rd 2009
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_business_mag?id=161486116

The Alutrint smelter plant, now in its early construction phase, will employ local people on a limited basis. This was a condition included in the agreement between China's EXIM bank and the Government of Trinidad and Tobago when both parties signed off on the final tranche of a US$400 million loan on May 4 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Port of Spain.

Josieann Richards, Alutrint's manager of communications and community relations, confirmed the labour proviso, saying a condition of the EXIM loan was "that the project hire Chinese contractor CMEC to provide labour and technology for the plant.

"This country has no experience or expertise in smelter construction," Richards said. "Local labour is being and will continue to be contracted by CMEC for non-specialised, noncritical path construction works such as foundations, fencing and drainage."

She said last week that prior to the eruption of protest demonstrations by La Brea residents, Alutrint's management team, which is the executing agent for the Government-owned project, held several meetings with CMEC, stressing to them the need to employ as many local contractors as possible.

"They have already hired one such community contractor and they are monitoring the standard of work being performed by his employees. CMEC has also short-listed a number of other local contractors who may qualify for the specialised type of work at the plant. One must understand though that a US$400 million smelter is not a social programme. While community concerns must be taken into consideration, Alutrint's remit is to have the contractor and sub-contractors deliver work within budget, on time, and of sound quality," she added.
La Brea residents protest for jobs outside the Alutrint construction site last Wednesday.

Richards said that 50 per cent of Alutrint's on-site administrative staff-15 people, to be precise-were locals whose contracts with the company had been extended for another year.

"Additionally, most of the 35 persons employed at the company's Chaguanas head office are locals. At the construction site, while we are constrained by the terms of the loan, and there are close to 200 Chinese workers directly employed with CMEC, locals who do get employment must match the productivity of the foreigners, as well as their work ethic. The first phase of the plant is expected to be complete in 28 months, and we want to meet that timeline."

Last week, residents of La Brea staged protests demanding employment during the construction phase of the 125,000 tonnes-a-year aluminium plant.

They have blocked the entrance to the site, saying they were promised jobs when they backed Government's construction of the smelter in their community.

At the time (around 2006-07), residents of Cap de Ville, where a much bigger Alcoa smelter was slated to be built, protested its construction because of environmental and health issues.

Backed by the environmentalist lobby, the residents successfully fended off the Alcoa plant.

When the Cap de Ville protestors attempted to win support from La Brea residents against the construction of the Alutrint plant, they met hostility.

The latter held rallies supporting the construction of the smelter in their district, saying they expected it to bring jobs to the jobless, and revive the fortunes of the district where the Pitch Lake was the main employer. Several meetings were held to discuss and debate the issue, with tempers flaring, and PNM politicians-then MP Larry Achong at the forefront-telling Cap de Ville and La Brea residents they would benefit from both smelters.

Achong has since stood down as the MP for Point Fortin, as did Hedwige Bereaux, who represented La Brea. Foreign Affairs Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon, the new representative for Point Fortin, was a signatory to the final tranche of the China EXIM bank loan, along with China's ambassador to this country, Huang Xing. After the signing ceremony, Xing told reporters that contractor CMEC "will try to hire as many citizens as it can in the construction of the plant".

He also said the company "will try to hand over to locals the operation, maintenance and management of the complex as early as possible".

Another contentious issue surrounding the construction of the plant is the relocation of more than 50 houses that are said to be too close to the plant.

The affected residents now claim they are being offered sub-standard houses at Debe, a district they are unaccustomed to and where they have no "roots".

They are resisting Government's plan to relocate them that far from La Brea.

And, as if they have just discovered their plight, those who live in the heart of La Brea say they are "down wind" the plant, which poses a health hazard.

Yet another "red flag" is a plan to have residents tested on an annual basis for cancer.

In a September 2006 interview with Business News Americas (BNA), Clement James, the public affairs manager at the company, said in response to questions about people protesting its construction: "The backlash was not from the community. There are certain political activists who have been trying to file injunctions against EMA and NEC. Not the community, which is in total support of our project."

James said then construction works were expected to start "in the last quarter of this year (2006)".

He said, also, of the 125,000 tonnes of aluminium produced annually, Alutrint was itself "going downstream" with "a rod, wire and cable plant also".

He referred to a car wheel plant to be run by Alutech, part of its joint venture partner, Sural of Venezuela.

But Sural has since withdrawn from the Alutrint project.

The Government, in justifying the construction of aluminium smelters (at one time Prime Minister Manning spoke of "two, three smelters"), claimed that almost all the plants' output would be used in downstream operations.

James told BNA that 5,000 tonnes a year of the plant's end-products will be made available to local firms that wished to go downstream. The rest (120,000 tonnes), he said, will be exported. Asked if Alutrint had signed agreements for exporting its products, James said marketing would be handled by Sural. Now that the Venezuelan firm is out of the picture, there is no indication as to who will handle this side of the operations. Richards told the Business Express that another potential joint venture partner was holding discussions with Government.

Richards said several local firms have expressed interest in the 5,000 tonnes per annum of products that will be made available to local downstream manufacturers.

She could not say if the car wheel plant that Alutech had proposed to construct was still on the cards.

But she confirmed that 120,000 tonnes would be used to make coils and rods, and 60,000 tonnes of those coils would be used to produce wire and cable.

Of concern to Government, now sole owner of Alutrint, must be the steep decline in metals prices, including aluminium. In May 2007, the base metal fetched US$1.25 per pound. That spiked to US$1.50 in mid-2008. Last week, on the London Metals Exchange, aluminium sold for US60 cents per pound.

The company's Board of Directors is chaired by Leroy Mayers (permanent secretary in the Ministry of Energy) and its members are Andrew Jupiter (chief executive of the National Energy Corporation), Rolly Ramoutar and Allyson Lewis.

Its chief executive officer is Phillip Julien.