Trinidad and To­ba­go’s plans to re­vive the for­mer Arcelor­Mit­tal steel plant at Point Lisas are rais­ing ques­tions over how the coun­try will pro­duce vana­di­um, where the raw ma­te­r­i­al will come from and whether there is enough en­er­gy ca­pac­i­ty to sup­port the am­bi­tious plans.

The min­er­al, which is used in spe­cial­i­ty steel, aero­space ap­pli­ca­tions and bat­tery tech­nol­o­gy, is ex­pect­ed to form part of the plant’s new in­dus­tri­al role be­yond its tra­di­tion­al steel­mak­ing op­er­a­tions.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, met­al­lur­gist Pro­fes­sor Clement Im­bert ques­tioned whether T&T has the raw ma­te­ri­als nec­es­sary to pro­duce vana­di­um do­mes­ti­cal­ly.