Point
Lisas East set to take off
By
Raffique Shah
Trinidad Express
Port
Spain
Petroleumworldtt.com
05 06 07
Four years after the operations of sugar company
Caroni (1975) Limited were shut down by government,
the massive industrial estate planned for lands
located to the south of the mothballed Brechin
Castle factory is about to take off. The lands
comprise approximately 1,700 hectares and run
from Exchange Village to the northern extremity
of Claxton Bay. Last week, one of the biggest
plants slated for new Point Lisas East Estate,
the US$1.4 billion Essar Steel, officially erected
its signboard in the Savonetta district off the
Southern Main Road. This plant will occupy close
to 200 hectares of former cane fields.
The
National Energy Corporation (NEC) will oversee
the establishment of this estate. Prakash Saith,
CEO of the NEC, confirmed that work was about to
start on the Essar site. He said, too, that the
NEC expects to begin work on a "corridor" and
other roads that will span the approximately eight-kilometre
estate, using in the main "tasker roads" left
behind by Caroni. By year-end, he expects the dredging
and piling to begin at a new port, which will be
located at the southern extremity of the existing
Point Lisas Estate.
"We have gone through most of the processes
regarding acquiring CECs from the Environmental
Management Agency (EMA)," he said. "Most
proposals have been approved, some with amendments,
but we are on track. We expect to start work on
the new port by year-end and become operational
by the end of 2008. This port, which will service
most plants on the new estate, will initially have
three berths. But the long-term plan is to move
to seven berths as the plants come on stream and
their need for port services increases." The
port, he added, will in no way compete with the
existing Port of Point Lisas. "We shall not
handle general cargo or containers. The port will
cater for raw materials being imported by the estate's
tenants, as well as serve them in whatever exports
they have. We are talking here heavy cargo-ores,
steel, etc."
Essar's
plant, which will produce 2.5 million tonnes
of steel a year, had to make some amendments
before its CEC was approved by the EMA. The India-based,
well-diversified conglomerate (it owns 33 per cent
of the third largest telecommunications company
in India, Hutchison Essar, in which Vodafone recently
acquired majority shares), expects to begin clearing
the site for its plant "within weeks",
an official said. Originally, Essar was supposed
to start site-preparation and construction in the
last quarter of 2007. But it took much longer than
expected to get its CEC. "As soon as the site
is cleared, the first thing we do is plant a 'perimeter
fence' about 80 metres deep comprising local trees.
This will serve not only as a buffer against any
emissions escaping, but will lend to the aesthetics
of the plant. Then we expect to start piling for
the plant itself in the last quarter."
Asked
how long he anticipates the plant will take before
it starts production, managing director
Mr Dhariwal said, "Eighteen months in the
first instance. But we shall be fully operational
in two and a half years. As construction works
proceed, the trees on the perimeter will grow.
So by the time we start operations, they should
form a decent fence." Essar still has not
concluded its agreement with the NGC for supply
of natural gas (the plant will use 140 mcf per
day), but it expects to have this in place shortly.
Earlier this year, NGC's Frank Look Kin admitted
that there was a "gas queue"-mainly planned
heavy industries that were awaiting supply agreements
with the NGC. Mr Dhariwal said, too, the company
has had discussions with the country's main utilities'
suppliers-T&TEC and WASA-regarding Essar's
electricity and water requirements.
The
Essar plant will use iron ore as feedstock. But
it differs from Mittal Steel in its end-products
in that it will not produce direct reduced iron
(DRI), which can spew streams of dust. Essar's
will produce hot rolled coils, hot briquette iron
and slabs, all of which will be used in downstream
industries. This is in keeping with government's
announced policy, which, according to Prime Minister
Patrick Manning, will ensure that "all new
projects must include a value-added element for
processing into a higher value product." Essar's
end-products will be used for making steel pipes,
gas cylinders, steel furniture, roofing sheets
and even in the automobile industry.
Two more big plants also slated for the Point
Lisas East Estate are the Westlake Ethylene plant
and a Malaeic Anhydride Processing Facility owned
by a South African company. The former is owned
by Westlake Chemical Corporation of Texas, and
will occupy 100 hectares of land. This plant will
use 37,000 barrels of ethane to produce 570,000
tonnes of ethylene per year. Ethylene is used as
an intermediate in the manufacture chemicals like
polyethylene, which in turn is used for the manufacture
of plastic containers, kitchenware and tubing like
PVC. When the agreement for this plant was signed
last year, Energy Minister Dr Lenny Saith said
it would go a long way towards reducing the country's
dependency on exporting oil and natural gas.
Prakash
Saith said other plants that have signed memoranda
of understanding (MOUs) with the NEC
to build plants there are CARSAL and Isegen. This
latter, a South African company, will utilize butane
to produce malaeic anhydride, a chemical used in
the food processing industry. CARSAL will use brine
from the desalination plant to produce calcium
chloride. It will occupy 15 hectares of land. "We
have also had many requests from some 20 local
companies interested in setting up manufacturing
plants on the estate," he continued. "They
will utilise the products made by the bigger plants
to go downstream, to reach the consumer level.
One company is interested in setting up a four-star
hotel. And many more are currently talking with
us about other types of operations. The estate
will see massive construction works over the next
three years, and many plants will become operations
soon thereafter."
Trinidad
Express
Wednesday, May 2nd 2007
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©2007 Trinidad Express. All Rights Reserved.
