[Suspended] China Eximbank provides $300 million buyer's credit loan to Alutrint for Aluminum Smelter Plant (Linked to Project ID#87559)

On May 5, 2009, China Eximbank and the Trinidad and Tobago government signed an agreement that earmarked a loan of $400 million for a 125000 ton aluminum smelting plant in La Brea to be owned and operated by Alutrint, a state-owned Trinidadian company. Additionally, CMEC signed an EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) to supply labor and equipment to Alutrint for this project. The Environmental Management Agency of Trinidad initially approved Alutrint's plan; however, following political backlash and a ruling by a Trinidadian high court, the project was suspended in June 2010. As of March 2018, CMEC had filed a claim against the Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago for the total of US$201 million for the cancellation of this project. This project was financed with a "mixed credit" from China Eximbank: a 100 million USD government concessional loan and a 300 million USD preferential buyer's credit. The loan followed a 2008 agreement in which Trinidad and Tobago agreed to establish a Joint Committee on Trade and Economic and Technical Cooperation with China. This project captures the 300 million USD PBC portion of the credit while project #87559 captures the 100 million USD GCL portion. According to the Guardian source, China National Machinery (CMEC) would be the sole source of labor and equipment to Altruint for this project and Sinosure would provide loan insurance on the Eximbank loan. The project was expected to be completed in August 2011, but following the court ruling, the project has been suspended. The plant would have produced 125,000 tons of aluminum/year. Loan details are unknown. According to the IPS News article, the credit facility was only worth $66.6 million USD. All other sources state that the loan was worth 400 million USD. According to the Guardian article, Alutrint was supposed to sign a take-or-pay contract in July 2009 to receive 240 megawatts of electricity from the Trinidad Generation Unlimited power plant by October 2011. As of 2017, Trinidad and Tobago has been considering restarting this project with a capital injection of TT$35 million, although as of 2019 the project has still not commenced. It has met with significant backlash from the environmental and fishing communities due to the generation of industrial waste and the necessity of constructing a new natural gas power-plant to power the facility. The Alutrint plant is actually the most recent of a series of aluminum smelters proposed in Trinidad, with previous investments being made by Venezuela and Alcoa, an American corporation.

Number of official sources

9

Number of total sources

20