March 28, 2024, 06:37:47 AM

Author Topic: Pitch Lake in T&T.  (Read 1073 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Flex

  • Administrator
  • Hero Warrior
  • *****
  • Posts: 18062
  • A Trini 4 Real.
    • View Profile
    • Soca Warriors Online
Pitch Lake in T&T.
« on: April 27, 2017, 01:52:28 AM »
Lake Asphalt eyes new markets, to launch new products
By Sasha Harrinanan (Newsday)


Plans to partially divest Trinidad Lake Asphalt (TLA), announced in the 2016 - 2017 budget, may no longer be necessary, following management’s “proactive” efforts to increase production capacity and efficiency, launch new products and enter new markets.

Business Day found out about the State company’s plans during an interview with TLA’s Acting CEO, Nigel Minors.

“We have actually been proactive about increasing revenue because we realised that you cannot continue to do the same old thing every year without falling behind.

“So in late September 2015, we signed an MOU with the University of the West Indies; Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Technology, to develop more downstream products. We want to enhance our Lasco range of products; we currently sell Underbody Coat, Bituminous Black Paint, Pipe Guard and Sealant.”

Seated in his office at TLA on the LABIDCO Industrial Estate (LABIDCO), La Brea, Minors said they began by looking at formulations for four new products and have since chosen to further develop two of those.

“Our aim is to commercialise these two within the next six to nine months, pending approval from our line ministry, Ministry of Energy (MoE); and corporation sole, Ministry of Finance (MoF).”

A change in administration usually means a review of projects and agreements. This MOU was no exception.

Although the original MOU is now null and void, Minors told Business Day that TLA intends to sign a new one as soon as the MoE and MoF give their approval. “I suspect that could be within the next three to four months, following which we would launch the new Lasco products. They are expected to generate foreign exchange, US dollars, from sales on the global market.”

Increasing TLA’s production capacity and efficiency requires a new plant, something which also requires final approval from the two ministries.

In the meantime, the company is seeking to improve operations at its existing facility.

“Our plant is more than 67 years old, the process is antiquated as well. So we are in the middle, right now, of some highly sensitive talks - testing and so on, to improve the process. (Subsequently) bringing on a new plant in the same area would likely triple or quadruple our capacity.”

This would be very significant because TLA “would no longer be stymied by a limited production figure” when determining how to meet supply demands.

“Ideally, we would love to have the new plant operational within nine to 12 months, once we get the approval to proceed.”

The impact of production limitations is something TLA experienced within the past six years.

Minors said Chinese companies accounted for “the largest percentage of our distributorship”, particularly in the lead up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

“We moved about 32,000 tonnes of our TLA product right before the Beijing Olympics. By 2010, we were moving about 22,000 tonnes. Based on these types of arrangements, there’s where we find the ebb and flow in TLA exports/sales. Hence the need to always be looking at other markets.”

While the slowdown in the global economy affected sales to a certain extent, TLA was also the same time “behind the ball on orders from our other customers.”

Minors explained that because of the 2008, 2009 arrangement, “we had a new player that came into the picture - China Railway, and the previous board decided to focus on China Railway because it was expected to order 50,000 tonnes a year; our production capacity was about 50,000 a year.”

“A lot of the emphasis therefore went towards looking at supplying China Railway from 2011 to 2012 but they ended up ordering an average of 20,000 tonnes per year in the first two years.”

“Lake Asphalt, traditionally, has been a demand-driven production company. We needed to have secured our other markets and even new markets during this time.”

TLA did still supply smaller orders but Minors said not having maintained existing markets or targeting new ones “kept us back a bit from where I believe we should have been in 2012, 2013 in terms of more orders from our long-standing clients’ newer markets.”

“If we had done the ground work,” he added, “when we had that sharp decline in orders from China Railway, we would’ve been able to ramp up orders in other markets.”

Ensuring that TLA never finds itself in a similar situation again is a main driver of the proposed upgrades, which Minors reiterated requires final approval from the MoE and MoF.

Asked about the budget for the new plant, Minors said he couldn’t share that because discussions are still in proposal stage.

However, he did reveal that employees who work in the existing facility would be re-trained to operate the newer equipment.

TLA also intends to “find new roles, as needed, for those whose jobs may be made redundant because the process would no longer be as labour-intensive.”

Currently, TLA employs just over 200 persons, plus about 50 casual workers.

About 75 percent to 80 percent of staff comes from La Brea, Point Fortin, Rousillac and parts of Oropouche.

TLA is “a US $100 million company, on average, per year (but) a lot of that revenue goes into labour costs; its labour-intensive, and other expenses.”

Hence the push by Minors and his management team to execute the aforementioned upgrades.

This, he noted, is expected to increase TLA’s foreign exchange earnings per year.

You can see part if the port at LABIDCO from the CEO’s office.

When the matter of transportation costs arose during the interview, Minors expressed hope that LABIDCO would have its upgrade plans approved too, so that TLA could export its products “down the hill” rather than paying about TT $3,000 per container, round-trip, to either the Point Lisas or the Port-of-Spain port.

“LABIDCO plans to expand the port and its facilities this year to include containerised cargo via the addition of gantry cranes. This would be great for us because our transport costs are a significant part of our expenses - a 20-foot container usually hold 20 tonnes of our product.”

“If we decide to move, on average, 1,000 tonnes per week, that’s 44 containers by about TT $3,000 per container roundtrip, it’s a lot.”

Minors estimated the company would achieve a 75 percent savings if it could use LABIDCO instead.

Regarding doing business in La Brea, Minors, like most others Business Day spoke to, called for the opening of a bank “or at least two ATMs.”

“La Brea also needs a couple of good restaurants, especially when people come down from Port-of- Spain for all-day meetings.”

“We normally cater food but sometimes you want to take clients out and it would be nice to take them somewhere in the area rather than driving to Point Fortin,” Minors stated.

The real measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

Offline Flex

  • Administrator
  • Hero Warrior
  • *****
  • Posts: 18062
  • A Trini 4 Real.
    • View Profile
    • Soca Warriors Online
Re: Pitch Lake in T&T.
« Reply #1 on: April 27, 2017, 01:53:23 AM »
Forgotten La Brea
By Natalie Briggs (Newsday).


The man leans against his car. He is wearing a TOFCO working polo over his safety gear. This is on La Brea junction, where the road splits, right to go deeper into the community, left to go to the famed Pitch Lake where legend has Raleigh caulking his ships all those centuries ago.

Along the way, there are tiny board houses bent and warped like old men, oftentimes with modern concrete structures in the same yard. These are testament to the power of geology and time. Decades ago, residents were warned to put nothing up besides wooden structures on the shifting earth that plagues this part of the country. Later generations would defy caution and, as prosperity flowed through the area, brick and mortar became standard.

But prosperity ebbs as well.

“I doing all the interviews for the past two weeks. I will tell you all about TOFCO and what going on in La Brea,” the man promised. Whether he works there or used to is unclear, he is vague on that point. “You have to pay me for the interview though.”

Historically producers of much of the country’s wealth, communities like La Brea in the island’s southwest, do not seem to be reaping permanent benefits from the position.

Even though the area is industrial, La Brea lacks its own fire station. Appliances must come from Point Fortin.

Gerald Debiset, area local government councilor, says a lack of water, poor road infrastructure and chronic low levels of employment are problems too.

A 2016 report found that the area’s rate of poverty is 6 per cent higher than the national average. Its unemployment rate is 7.2 per cent versus the 3.4 per of the rest of the country.

Projects like Angelin make a difference in this place. The loss of the construction of the platform is not just a topic of national debate. It has divided a community.

Our interview subject spares us a few words before, free of charge, before he goes.

“Is not just people in La Brea cause that to go,” he told us, “They know why they take the platform.”

A mile and a half away, TOFCO, the company that was supposed to be constructing the platform sits on the coast. Huge cranes sprout from its yard, almost skeletal looking. With the exception of a few cars moving into and out of the compound, it is quiet.

The suspended dust cloud from incomplete road work gives the whole scene a yellowish, forlorn aspect.

It is a popular view in the community, particularly among the young and usually male. Listening, one gets the sense that residents think the community is being conspired against. It is not the only view though.

An elderly gentleman set up with fruit and craft right outside the Pitch Lake says: “(Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union President General Ancel) Roget chain up them fellas and them. He had no right to say what he said and now look what happen. You think this hurting Roget? These people have to understand that half a bread, is better than no bread at all.”

His statement is all the more surprising because he purports to be a senior union man who has a full-time job working offshore. The stall is just a side hustle.

Unlike jobs, opinions here abound on why BP decided to move construction of the Angelin platform to another country and depending on which residents you speak to blame keeps shifting.

Some people blame TOFCO for provoking protests by its lack of concern for workers’ health, even though the company itself has a good safety record.

“I leave out the TOFCO work some years ago,” said one youth, “The company not coming clean. I was a welder there and they used to have us welding metal alloys. All kinds of dangerous fumes and skin rash.”

This fellow admitted he was not certified to weld and was only able to secure a job at TOFCO after several years of trying through a contact.

“I am grateful, because I learned a lot when I was there” he said, “But right now, I am only working part time at another place and I have to wait until they call me out.”

Nicole Olivierre, La Brea’s Member of Parliament and former Energy Minister, said there are some serious shortfalls in the community’s education system, starting at the primary level.

“The schools are not performing as well as they could or have done in the past. When you have these challenges at the primary school level, the opportunities that these students have are diminished. This entrenches the cycle of poverty,” she said.

Additionally, students were not going on to tertiary level education, which left them at a disadvantage in getting jobs once the lower level skilled construction projects were complete.

Olivierre identified steps being taken to enhance the level of technical skill found within the community, including the establishment of an NESC campus. But she said the area’s young people needed to do more to acquire qualifications in fields such as chemistry and electrical engineering.

Clarifying her earlier statements assigning a portion of the blame for the situation to residents, the MP said, ““It cannot be that the residents’ actions were the only one that factored into the Angelin decision. But it certainly would have been one of many factors.”

She went on to explain that BP’s timeline for the project made it impossible to keep it in La Brea, but noted however that, “generally speaking, when you have a climate of tension and hostility, it is a negative that will be applied when an investor is analyzing where they can place their investment.”

“One of the things that makes Trinidad and Tobago such an attractive investment destination is not only its highly-educated workforce, but its stable democracy, whether this is at the national level or the localised political climate.”

Beyond education, some alternative perspectives on the La Brea situation emerged from the neighbouring local government district.

Chanarbaye Ramadharsingh, the councilor for Rousillac/ Otaheite explained that often, people had a stereotype about La Brea residents and were unlikely to hire them because of it. She would not elaborate on this stereotype or “concept” as she called it.

Checks throughout La Brea and Rousillac though, would reveal that several contractors would not hire La Brea residents after many of them failed mandatory drug testing at worksites.

Ramadharsingh explained that her district was not as badly affected by the loss of the Angelin project because people had more opportunities to be self-sufficient.

“You will find that we are more agricultural over here and we will grow a lot of our food. We also will start businesses where we could hire our children.”

Land ownership in Rousillac/ Otaheite was more restricted, discouraging unrestricted migration into the community. Ramadharsingh thought that the open state and Petrotrin lands in La Brea brought people into the area, swelling the numbers looking for work. She said many of the people living there now, did not have deep roots in the community.

On top of all of this, companies in the area have cut down the number of local sub-contractors, choosing instead to bring their own hires into the community. Local contractors in turn have decreased the amount of local labour they would normally hire.

This is the result of a combination of reasons presented thus far, including reducing work stoppage time due to protests, the lack of qualifications within in the community to do work beyond low level construction, or general unsuitability for the work, as well as the country’s economic hard times.

Given the loss of the Angelin, we asked Olivierre if she was afraid of the community losing the Mitsubishi’s Caribbean Gas Chemical Limited (CGCL) $6.3 billion project.

The La Brea MP said that project had already had its fair amount of challenges, but that Mitsubishi had shown a level of commitment to its investment that made it unlikely that it would leave La Brea and TT.

She said the company has made a commendable effort to involve local contractors, though La Brea residents believe more could be done.

As the Mitsubishi project continued, Olivierre exhorted La Brea residents to see themselves as partners in their community’s future development.

The CGML plant is expected to produce methanol and will come on stream in 2019.

The real measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

 

1]; } ?>