Sahadeo resurrects Labidco

MINISTER in the Ministry of Finance Senator Christine Sahadeo has expressed optimism that the energy and petrochemical industry is well poised to alleviate unemployment, particularly in South Trinidad. At the formal opening of the annual Fyzabad Heritage Festival to mark upcoming Labour Day celebrations on Saturday, Minister Sahadeo announced the resurrection of the infamous La Brea Industrial Development Complex (LABIDCO). Sahadeo, who declared the festival open on Saturday at the Fyzabad Regional Complex, disclosed that the Fabrication Yard at the LABIDCO site in La Brea has almost been completed. The facility, the minister said, will be used for the construction of large offshore decks and jackets for offshore platforms. Construction of the Labidco project as an industrial estate under the present Government in 1994 was closed due to concerns over uncapped gas wells and other environmental concerns.

Sahadeo told a gathering of Fyzabad residents that Government was giving serious consideration to the construction of a natural gas refinery which will produce synthesis gas for downstream petrochemical plants. Such a refinery, she added, would also process methanol, ammonia and acetic acid. Sahadeo also announced that somewhere in the south west part of Trinidad, Government was pursuing as a potential site the establishment of a Union Estate. The site is expected to house additional ammonia, methanol, urea and urea ammonium nitrate plants. In addition to those plants, the minister said, Government was also pursuing the goal of establishing an aluminum complex, a power plant and a gas-to-liquids complex. Praising the heroic struggle of labour leader Tubal Uriah Buzz Butler, Minister Sahadeo told the gathering that the Fyzabad community was well positioned to benefit from those initiatives. “Mr Butler fought immensely,” she said, “for better working conditions within the energy sector which has been and still is the mainstay of the economy of Trinidad and Tobago.”