Alutrint-The proposed Aluminium Smelter in Trinidad and Tobago

[Rhea Mungal]

Dr. Wayne Kublalsingh
University of the West Indies
Republic of Trinidad and Tobago
West Indies

The Gas Guntalk

There is always the boast, by officials of the National Gas Company, the National Energy Corporation and other state entities that Trinidad and Tobago is a model for gas monetization. We are among the planet’s best, they boast, when it comes to getting gas out of the ground and converting it to products of value. This is just ordinary Trini showboating and guntalk. The fact is that we are a third-rate monetizer of our prodigious oil and gas resources. Third rate and third world. The following seven reasons explain how this is so.

First, the oil and gas industry in the post-1970 phase has been commandeered by a very few individuals. Gaffney and Cline, the British consultants, in their 2002 Master Plan on the industry noted: “It is evident that this most critical sector of the national economy is highly dependent on the capability and integrity of a handful of industry professionals. This would be a cause for concern in any private sector company and should be of considerable concern to the Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.” These gas ideologues have remained a law unto themselves, a baronial sect, above scrutiny and the censor of state bureaucrats and parliament. For example, when these individuals were called by the Joint Select Committee of Parliament to justify the economics of smelter, they continually refused to attend. This situation smacks of the cattle baron, sheriff-emasculating culture of the American Wild West of the 19th Century.

Second, the most prestigious member of this baronial caste, with a history of research, education and business in the petroleum economy, well knows that real monetization of this sector comes from ownership of supply. We contract foreigners to survey, explore, drill and transport. We collect the dividends, royalties, taxes. After forty years in this business, if we were really in the big league, we would have had greater control of our own gas exploration, supply and transport. Brazil, India, China, Australia have created global oil extraction companies, over the past half a century, using the best research in their universities and by buying knowledge and technology internationally. Boasting of LNG and Point Lisas is like boasting we wear jeans and sneakers.

Third, the energy industry is the most lucrative on the planet. Petrotrin owns some of the most extensive gas and oil fields around the island. It produces a range of high value products. Today it is in a bust mode. Look and you will soon see foreign investors coming in to absolve it. The company’s big man has been taken and sent to graze at the National Gas Company, unscathed by his professional failures. Again, this friend-friend thing. Third class, third rate, third world.

Fourth, is this latest 21st Century drive to monetize gas using aluminum and steel the best we are capable of? The costs of smelter far outweigh any small change that would accrue to us. The proposed steel mill is a very good example of “chooking” a non-viable industry into a viable economic landscape at Claxton Bay. Gas monetization, smelter-and-steel style, is simply the destruction of viable resources - financial, health and ecological - to put a little cash into Mr Manning’s coffers. It is uneconomic. It is like those imperialists, feudal kings, planters of old who converted the blood of tribal nations (bullion), of peasants (corn), of slaves (sugar) into gold to perpetuate imperialism, feudalism, plantocracy. In Mr Manning’s case, “gas monetization” means the conversion of ill-gained, uneconomic cash into a legacy of partisan rule.

Fifth, monetization is no guarantee of genuine economic development. It would be difficult to claim that citizens are getting a fair exchange for the billions of dollars which they put into the government’s coffers annually. Citizens are getting the very short end of the stick, for example, in security, health care, education, agriculture, land use development, ecological protection and water management. We get plenty showboating and showcasing: waterfront project, presidential palace, boardwalk for Maracas. Monetization does not necessarily lead to diversification or development.

Sixth, there seems to be a rush to get as much gas out of the ground as fast as possible. An emissary has been sent to Caracas to lobby President Chavez for that cross border gas bubble in South. The Chinese are now preparing to drill for gas in the Gulf. There is a rush to hand out contracts to gas hunters. One expert is calling for a decrease in petroleum taxes for gas explorers. There seems to be no attempt to budget our gas, that is, to leave some for future generations. We are leaving mounting debts for our children, but no gas. Monetization really means depleting as much gas as possible in the quickest possible time, without any gas budgeting for a future economy. This bespeaks greed, irrationality, and non-sustainable, third-rate economic planning.

Seventh, our Minister of Energy has promised that in the “next term” the government would focus on renewables. What we should have been doing two terms ago, incrementally implementing technologies for solar, wind, wave, tidal energy, we are putting off for next term. We continue to beat the tired old donkey and mule of oil and gas. Hydrocarbons are no longer cool. They are exhaustible, and exhaust the planet.

Is this a good model for gas monetization? God bless the prestige school, Power Point boys who sing this model. This is what Sparrow sang of them: “If I was bright I woulda be a damn fool”.

Wayne Kublalsingh

Submitted by Rhea Mungal
http://alutrint.wordpress.com/

[Rhea Mungal]

HOW MUCH ARE YOU PAYING ALUTRINT TO LIE TO YOU?

Since 2004 Alutrint has been selling the most bogus information to the public. A propaganda leaflet on the Union Industrial Estate Communications Center, written by a world renowned expert on smelters, says that Norway is 385,200m2. This means that Norway is less than one kilometer square! Obviously a typo. But how do you explain the first line of the brand new newspaper La Brea on the Move, August 2009, Issue #2? It says: “While it compares in size to Trinidad and Tobago, tiny Norway has seven smelters…”. The fact is that Norway is 385,200 sq kilometers and Trinidad and Tobago is 5,128 sq kilometers. Our two islands could fit into Norway 75 times. Alutrint is using our money to lie to us, in the most absurd ways.

Wayne Kublalsingh

Submitted by Rhea Mungal
http://alutrint.wordpress.com/

[Rhea Mungal]

Please visit www.alutrint.wordpress.com for more information. Please help us to preserve our pristine environment in Trinidad and Tobago.

Rhea Mungal
rhea.mungal@gmail.com
868-769-4672

[Rhea Mungal]

What is the cost of this massive advertising campaign?

I picked up the Sunday paper(a few weeks ago) there is a pull out on La Brea featuring Alutrint. On Monday my friend turns on the radio in her car Dr. Harriet Phillips and Mr. Joe Norton voices thunders through the air waves as they speak about the safety and benefits of Alutrint. We tried switching to another station. This one had a delayed repeat. Obviously a pre-recorded interview. My friend switches off the radio. On Tuesday I turn on my radio, their voices again! I pick up a copy of a daily newspaper here Alutrint has an advertisement using vegetables and aluminium pots.

What is Alutrint’s Advertising Campaign Costing the Tax Payer?

[Rhea Mungal]

SYMPOSIUM ON THE ECONOMICS OF ALUTRINT

RESOLUTION

WHEREAS:
We are in a position where our proven gas reserves are declining;
We do not have the higher order factors to develop the downstream industries related to the smelter;
We need to prioritise the use of incomes from energy to uses other than those, like the Aluminum Smelter project, whose viability is very much in doubt;
And having recognised,
The large carbon emission and the related health risk to our society, in particular to the 4080 residents who live in a radius of 2km from the proposed smelter and the cost of monitoring those most at risk;
The demise of a quality human existence in the neighbouring communities;
The environmental and ecological losses;
That there is no basic information on the actual returns to the country, financial or otherwise;

BE IT RESOLVED THAT:
The Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago release immediately to the people of TT the rationale for the Aluminum Smelter, including detailed costs of natural gas and other inputs and expected revenues over the next 20 years and, in the event that this information is not forthcoming, that the GORTT suspend with immediate effect the Aluminum Smelter project.

Symposium Panelists: Ms Mary King, Mr Reg Potter, Mr Makesi Jones
Symposium Chairperson: Professor Patrick Watson

This symposium was held on Saturday 12th September 2009 in Port of Spain Trinidad and Tobago.

[Rhea Mungal]

Call for Accurate Data

“Dear Friends,

This is an urgent plea for help in Saving the Claxton Bay Mangrove and
to bring some international awareness to prevent the construction of
the aluminium smelter Alutrint. Those in authority are openly defying
the courts of this land. The high court ruled against the Certificate
of Environmental Clearance granted by the EMA to Alutrint.”

DATA AND FACTUAL ACCURACY are keys to understanding the viability of the Alutrint smelter and the NEC port and Essar Steel mill. The state, the professional, the public official must not hide from the public accurate data of these projects. Dr Ahmad Khan, a client of the National Energy Corporation, has written a plea that our Blog on Alutrint, devoted to calling for economic transparency on this project, and our petition to Save the Mangrove at Claxton Bay, publish factual data. He quoted from the above email, circulated locally and internationally, stating that it contains inaccuracy. Here are factual data relevant to this e-mail:

1.The blog on the economics of Alutrint records that officials of the Natural Gas Export Task Force, the Ministry of Finance, the Auditor General, the Minister of Energy, the Environmental Management, the National Energy Corporation, the National Gas Company and Alutrint itself have denied numerous opportunities to disclose the cost and benefits of Alutrint. Officials, including Professor Ken Julien, one of the key architects of Alutrint, his son Philip Julien, who has worked with Alutrint from its inception, as Project Manager and now as Acting Chief Executive Officer, have refused to appear before Parliament to answer questions on the finances and economics of this proposed smelter. Letters, freedom of information requests, invitations on many media programs have been issued to all these state officials, calling for the accounting sheet of Alutrint. Alutrint is breaking the law by refusing to publish its audited accounts annually.

2.The Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, one of the key architects of the Alutrint smelter, is openly defying the High Court by continually declaring that the smelter will continue. The court has revoked the certificate awarded by the State to Alutrint. The matter is now in the hands of the Appeal Court. This matter will be heard in the Court of Appeal, before three judges, beginning September 21st 2001. Other possible breaches of the High Court order are being submitted in affidavit formats to the relevant authorities.

3.The National Energy Corporation port and associated Essar Steel mill proposed for Claxton Bay would have permanent negative impacts on the mangrove system, the seabed, the fishing industry, and the health of the residents. With respect to the mangrove system, according to statistics from the Environmental Impact Statement, a dual-carriage roadway, 100 meters wide by 425 meters long will pass through the existing mangrove. The cumulative impact of all port associated activities - the continual dredging of the sea floor to a depth of 40 feet, the thousands of tons of steel dust emitted by the proposed mill, the loading and transport of 5,040,000 tons of unconsolidated iron ore annually, the concreting of 22 acres of fishing grounds and seagrasses - will have a permanent destructive impact on the Claxton Bay Mangrove System.

4.The economics of the Alutrint smelter and the proposed port and steel mill are of significant concern to both the blog on Alutrint and the Save the Mangrove petition. The public are the ultimate shareholders of all three projects. What are the factual economic costs of these projects? And what are the benefits to our economy? What remuneration, for example, has NEC clients collected from the production of Environmental Impact Statements for the proposed smelter and related facilities, the steel mill and the port? This too must be reflected in the accounting sheets of all these projects. We shall be glad to publish these figures if they become available to us.


Wayne Kublalsingh

Submitted by Rhea Mungal
http://alutrint.wordpress.com/

[Rhea Mungal]

Please visit our blog

www.alutrint.wordpress.com

Thank you.

[Rhea Mungal]

I would like to Thank the following people:

Andrew Gunnyon, Australia
Fred Page, Australia
Andrew Randrianasulu, Russian Federation

For signing our petition.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/957999809

Please read or blog now
www.alutrint.wordpress.com