Alcoa officials: We will follow ema rules

A senior official of Alcoa, the aluminium smelting global giant,  has said the company is intent on following the environmental rules laid down by the Environmental Management Authority (EMA). Randy Overbey, President, Primary Metals Development, Trinidad and Tobago Project Leader, in an interview with Business Day last week, insisted that the company was not going to shirk its environmental obligations. He said the concerns raised in the newspaper’s editorials were legitimate, noting that the company had not done enough to ally the fears of people that the plant will meet all environmental criteria. Those editorials called on the government and Alcoa to come clean on the project and ensure that all safeguards will be put in place to protect the people of La Brea when the plant is built. Overbey said he is aware that some of the material published on the internet “can elevate anxieties.” “We intend to work through the Certificate of Environmental Clearance,” he said. “We will adhere to all  environmental rules.  

“We don’t want to build a plant that violates regulations and damages the environment. “It is not part of our value system,” he insisted. Wade Hughes, Director, Global EHS Education, Training and Communication, said Alcoa was ready to comply with all the environmental restrictions laid down by the EMA. “We want to do this thing right,” he said of the plant, noting that it was in the company’s interest to do so. In a  letter to the Editor, Alcoa said its application for a Certificate of Environmental Clearance was lodged with the Environmental Management Authority on May 25, the day after the signing of the memorandum of Understanding which paved the way for us to explore the feasibility of building the proposed smelter. “The EMA is actively examining our application and has called for significant amounts of supplementary information to support our application,” the letter said.

In a Memorandum of Under-standing (MOU) signed between Alcoa and the Trinidad and Tobago Govermment in May, the parties signalled their intention to build a US one billion plant. The TT government has a 40 percent stake in it, while Alcoa will own 60 percent. The Venezuelan company, Sural, a partner in the plant, has no equity in it. Alcoa operates 28 smelters globally, including Norway, Italy and Brazil and is still the world’s largest producer of aluminium. Overbey said while the MOU has been signed, it won’t be until January 2005, when all the environmental and engineering studies are completed, that the green light will be given. “We both have a lot at stake, the TT government and Alcoa,” Overbey said. The company will soon appoint an engineering company to work with the National Energy Corporation (NEC). If everthing goes according to plan, Overbey said the plant should be up and running by end of 2007 or early 2008.           

He envisions 500 - 600 permanent jobs when the project is completed. He said he could not say too much about the MOU, simply because both parties were trying to “outline the major principles of the agreement.” Overbey insists that the plant is going to a state-of-the art aluminium plant, with the latest technology for emissions controls. The TT economy looks good, he said, noting that this was one of the reason why the company signed on the dotted line. In a show of good faith, Overbey said he met with community leaders in La Brea after the signing, noting that he wanted to answer some of their concerns and questions. He said he came away with the feeling that the people of La Brea understood what was going on. He also says that the company has made great progress in safety and notes that Alcoa’s major concern has been work-related incidents. Asked if the company had any experienced any major accidents, Overbey said no. Overbey said the company was going to give residents of La Brea the first bite in terms of employment.

“If we want local people working on the plant, what we need to do is put measures in place to give people that opportunity,” he said. Alcoa, he said, was ready to put in place education and training systems for the people of La Brea. “That’s our direction, that what we want to do,” he said. Asked what were the advantages of coming to TT, Overbey said this country’s cheap natural gas supply played a big role, noting that this was a big part of the company’s cost. “The TT government said it could provide long-term affordable power,” he said. He stressed that all the bauxite needed to run the plant was going to come from Suriname and Jamaica. Alcoa, he said, was looking at producing 250, 000 metric tonnes a year of aluminium. That, he said, works out to be about 500,000 tonnes of alumina coming in. The company’s transhipping point at Tembladora in Carenage, he said, will not be affected by the aluminium smelter.  

Asked about the market for the product, Overbey said there was great global demand.He pointed to the fact that the aluminium content in the auto industry  was growing and the food and beverage industry was taking a big chunk out of it. “We think the markets will continue to grow,” he said. But the company itself is looking at actively pursuing the development of the down stream  industry.  “We are actively considering this,” Overbey said, noting that there was no prompting from the government to do so. “Alcoa is ready to work with the people of La Brea,” Hughes said.