Real
deal is gas price
By Juhel Browne
Trinidad Express
Port
Spain
Petroleumworldtt.com
12 17 06
Getting
a competitive gas price for natural gas, and not
environmental approvals, could prove to be the only
thing that will stand in the way of Alcoa establishing
its proposed US$1.5 billion smelter in South Trinidad.
In an exclusive interview, Alcoa
Trinidad and Tobago director Wade Hughes said for
the global aluminium giant getting environmental
approval from the Environmental Authority (EMA)
is a fairly straightforward affair since it knows
how to build and safely operate its facilities.
"There has never been, to my
knowledge any place in the world where we have been
prevented from proceeding with a project like this
on environmental grounds," Hughes said.
Asked on what other grounds, an
Alcoa smelter project was unable to be established,
Hughes said, "Well clearly, if you can't negotiate
commercial arrangements, then this project won't
proceed."
Hughes said in the United States,
for example, Alcoa is reopening smelters similar
to the one it wants to construct in Trinidad.
He said Alcoa's main challenge with
those US smelters is not meeting the required environmental
standards but the availability of competitively
priced energy.
And last Wednesday, Prime Minister
Patrick Manning said unlike the gas price, the environmental
issue is not subject for negotiation.
He did so in response to questions
from the Express after he toured the $1.7 billion
Waterfront Development Project site in Port of Spain.
"The environmental issue will
be the standard set by the EMA (Environmental Management
Authority). And if they set standards you either
adhere to standards or you don't adhere to it,"
Manning said.
"If you can't adhere to it
then you don't construct. If you adhere to it then
that's fine. So that's not negotiable," Manning
said
The commercial arrangements which
are negotiable are primarily based on the price
of natural gas required to produce the electricity
needed for Alcoa's proposed smelter.
The negotiations for the gas price
now being conducted by Alcoa and the National Gas
Company are a closely guarded secret.
Although, the NGC is a State-owned
company, Manning has previously said that the rules
of commercial confidentiality apply in the negotiations.
He said disclosing the price now
being negotiated would create an impression of the
Government being untrustworthy and, as such, scare
off future industrial sector investors.
So, in light, of the unwillingness
of the parties involved to disclose the details
of the gas price negotiations, the Express asked
Manning to describe how difficult these talks could
be.
He said it is not as easy as it
might appear to be.
"The Government of Trinidad
and Tobago has developed some expertise in doing
these things now so that while it is not an easy
process, because of the facility that we developed
it is made to look easier than it really is. In
fact, really, it is a credit to the local people
who negotiate these things," he said.
In response to the same question
on the difficulty of gas price negotiations, Hughes
said this was just one of the many complexities
involved in establishing smelters.
"These
sort of projects have to be a win, win, win. They
have to be a win for the country, they have to be
a win for the communities that host them and they
have to be a win for the company," he said.
Trinidad
Express
Sunday, December 17th 2006
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©2006 Trinidad Express. All Rights Reserved.
