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

[Cancelled] China Eximbank provides $300 million buyer's credit loan to Alutrint for Aluminum Smelter Plant 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.

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 Record ID#87559 captures the 100 million USD GCL portion. 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.

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. The project has been controversial.

In June 2019, Trinidadian High Court Judge Mira Dean-Armourer “quashed the Certificate of Environmental Clearance (CEC) for the project, saying that the CEC issued to Alutrint in 2007 had failed to take into consideration the cumulative impact of the three major industria projects, including the smelter.

According to the judge, the “decision of the defendant EMA is procedurally irregular, irrational and made without regard to a relevant consideration”.

The project 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. Former Prime Minister Keith Rowley was supportive of restarting the project but there had been no progress.

He noted in 2022 that his opponent and the former Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar “improperly shut down the project”. He blamed the previously government, saying the shut down was politically driven.

In addition, CMEC had initiated arbitration procedures, suing the Government of Trinidad and Tobago in the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disptutes, demanding US $300 million dollars to be paid.