To steel or not to steel: The sequel

T&T Pa­tri­ot

As de­tails emerge re­gard­ing the pro­posed Ibis Steel Plant in Trinidad and To­ba­go, the project’s busi­ness mod­el and its align­ment with the for­mer Arcelor­Mit­tal as­sets are be­com­ing clear­er. This ar­ti­cle ex­plores the spe­cif­ic risks and po­ten­tial re­wards this ven­ture pos­es for Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The Gov­ern­ment’s ne­go­ti­at­ing team—com­pris­ing the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC), the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries (MEEI), the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties (MoPU), and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC), et. al. —will un­doubt­ed­ly scru­ti­nize the eco­nom­ics of this busi­ness mod­el. Uti­liz­ing in­de­pen­dent con­sul­tants will be crit­i­cal as they pre­pare for ne­go­ti­a­tions re­gard­ing sup­ply agree­ments for nat­ur­al gas, elec­tri­cal pow­er, site leas­es, port fees, wa­ter, and fis­cal in­cen­tives. The over­rid­ing pri­or­i­ty must be se­cur­ing tan­gi­ble, long-term val­ue for the coun­try. The fol­low­ing analy­sis is ground­ed in desk re­search from cred­i­ble sources and a de­tailed tech­ni­cal and eco­nom­ic frame­work.