T&T Govt agrees to restart Alutech aluminium downstream project

Three months after Sural officials visited T&T to lobby Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley to restart its Alutech aluminium downstream project, a board chaired by Prof Ken Julien has been set up to review options for the project which was originally linked to the Alutrint Smelter in La Brea.

The Energy sub-committee of Cabinet approved the appointment of government’s energy adviser Julien to head the board. Government officials are confirming that while Alutech is on the cards, the originally planned smelter is “definitely off the table and will not be restarted.”

But even as Government is set to launch into the project with Alutech, T&T and Sural (Barbados) Ltd are in a legal battle at the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida before Judge K Michael Moore.

Sural took T&T to court seeking US$56 million in damages in connection with the aluminium smelter project which was scrapped by the PP government in 2010 when it came into power.

The last sitting was on Wednesday, June 16, when Sural asked the court for access to key evidence it said would help in its attempts to undo an arbitration tribunal’s finding in favour of T&T with respect to the cancelled smelter project.

Alutech produces aluminium rims and other downstream products using patented technology. Alutrint Smelter was to have produced hot metal for Alutech to make a number of downstream products, including wheel rims. Asked where the material will now come from, Olivierre said the project will require “imported ingots” for the production of the downstream products.

The Alutech centre was to be the first of its kind in the Caribbean with robots playing a key role in the manufacture of pressed aluminium coils, billets and wheel rims.

Alutech also boasts that the technology used for the industrial production of cast aluminium products allows for minimum waste and a high degree of precision using highly calibrated and automated machinery.