(Trinidad Guardian) In what appears to be a major coup for the Keith Rowley administration, finally the Iron and Steel Plant at the Point Lisas Industrial Estate is set to restart production under new owners and could lead to the creation of hundreds of high paying jobs.
The Business Guardian has confirmed from multiple sources, and has seen documents that show that all is in place for the restart of the plant, pending final approval from the Cabinet, which is due to consider it today.
The proposers are hoping that Public Utilities Minister Marvin Gonzales will finally take the note to Cabinet so that T&TEC can proceed to negotiate a power purchase agreement with T&T Iron and Steel.
The liquidator Christopher Kelshall has given his approval for the plant to be transferred to the new owners T&T Iron and Steel, the company has already signed a term sheet agreement with the National Gas Company Ltd for an initial nine million standard cubic feet of natural gas per day (mmscf/d) starting in 2023 and increasing to 55 mmscf/d when it is into full operations by 2025/2026.
The Business Guardian has been told that the plan is to start off with the Melt shop and produce billets and coils. This will be done using scrap iron, both locally sourced and imported. The use of scrap iron could be a solution to the present standoff as there will not be a need to export any scrap iron, as it could be now used in the steel plant.
While this is happening, Business Guardian has seen plans to refurbish the DR 3 plant in time for the 2024 when additional natural gas is expected to be made available to the steel plant.
In 2024 the plan is to make Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) and therefore phase out the use of scrap iron. DRI is a cleaner process and will producer a better grade of Steel and fetch better international prices as well. Following the 2024 start up of the DRI 3 plant, the plan is to refurbish DR 2 plant for start up early 2026.
It is expected that the steel plant will have fewer employees than the Arcelor Mittal plant that employed on a daily basis up to 2,000 workers, using mainly contract employees. The proponents of T&T Iron and Steel expect to employ between 700 and 1,000 people.
Initially it proposed to see 250 permanent jobs being created.
This is likely to be a major shot in the arm for the government, because it would see high quality jobs being created, it will lead to significantly more electricity being sold, with an estimated total power requirements of 240 megawatts a day or 17 per cent of what the entire country uses at the moment. This would help T&TEC’s finances, it will lead to more fees being paid to National Energy for port services and to allow Plipdecco to collect significant rent.
The Rowley administration has been roundly condemned for the initial closure of the plant and the failure to protect workers.
Originally build by the then government of Dr Eric Williams, the iron and steel plant has had its share of ups and down and it was Arcelor Mittal’s chairman and CEO, Lakshmi Mittal who eventually in 1994 purchased the plant for US$70 million, but in 2016 after failing to get natural gas and electricity rates at prices it wanted, Mittal simply closed the plant and left. It meant the 600 plus permanent workers, many who have since died, lost their jobs without getting a cent as separation benefits.
This reality is not lost on the mind of the President of the Steel Workers Union of T&T, Timothy Bailey who blamed current Attorney General Reginald Armour with helping Mittal leave the country without paying workers benefits by finding loopholes in the legislation, which have still not been fixed.
“A portion of the workforce has gone on in terms of retirement and some have died, and something that has never been addressed, and I hope that this is touched on, is although a new entity is coming to reopen, and I will have a lot to say about that, not that I don’t want any entity to reopen, because it is good for the country, it is good for the economy, it will be good for the workers, my issue is people tend to believe that because time has past things are forgotten. “The same legislation that existed in 2016 that allowed Mittal to leave this country without paying workers any separation benefits, the Attorney General today, Reginald Armour is the person that guided Mittal to find the loopholes in our legislation to allow workers to go home after 36 years without any money,” Bailey argued.
He claimed this propelled to more deaths of workers overcome by stress.
‘All kinds of diseases people never had before come up, because you home, no assistance from the government, no assistance anywhere, you have mortgages, you have family to support you have wives basically, and you have demands at the end of the day, and you can’t fulfil it because you have invested your whole life in a company which was allowed to get up, leave our shores and is currently facilitating a liquidation process. If that not criminal, I want somebody tell me what is criminal.”
According to the President of the Steel Workers Union the reopening of the plant will require a significant amount of retraining of workers. “Definitely retraining and reskilling will be needed, even for those who have gone outside of the establishment, because you have to remember the plant has been closed since 2016, so definitely we will need some reskilling, you are going to need retraining.”
On the question of whether the union expects to represent workers once the steel plant reopens, Bailey said he expects a level of pushback but assures his union is ready to represent the workers.
He explained, “The recognition certificate never expires. There is another notion that they could do certain things and make it more difficult, case in point Petrotrin to Heritage, they may attempt to do the same thing, get multiple companies involved to breaks from the recognition certificate covering workers, but we will be ready and willing to assist the company, if the company has good intentions, and obviously, we are ready, willing and able to represent our members.”
