Alcoa has indicated its inability to meet the bauxite negotiating team this weekend and has reiterated its demand for a positive response to the proposals in its concept paper.
Stabroek News
July 6, 2001
The US?based company in a July 2 letter has also repeated its warning to seek an alternative resolution of its situation in Guyana. Last week, it warned that if it had not received a positive response by June 30, it would no longer support the proposals in the concept paper.
The Joint Committee on Bauxite Resuscitation had written to the company notifying it of the process it intended to follow in future discussions and inviting it to talks.
The negotiating team comprising Professor Clive Thomas and Robeson Benn as co?chairs and Lance Carberry and Odinga Lumumba as its other members was mandated to initiate discussions with despatch with Alcoa and the Bermine Group of Employees/Centrotrade Minerals and Metals/strategic investor (CTMM) on their proposals for the continued operation of the Berbice Mining Enterprise (Bermine) operations at Everton and Kwakwani. The team will meet CTMM on Sunday.
In a letter to the co?chairmen of the bauxite negotiating team, which Stabroek News has seen, Alcoa's Corporate Manager, Chris Whelan said that he would be travelling outside the US and would be returning on July 18. Other members of the Alcoa team, he said, were similarly committed.
Whelan pointed out again that the process being adopted by the negotiating team was inconvenient to his company which he said was seeking a timely resolution of the profitability of its investment in Guyana.
Benn yesterday confirmed receipt of the letter but declined to comment on its contents.
Alcoa is a joint venture partner with the Guyana government in the Aroaima Bauxite Company (ABC). The company, though jointly owned, is managed by Alcoa. ABC has made a loss in each of the last five years and has run up a debt of US$57 million.
Alcoa is now seeking, in proposals contained in its concept paper, the conversion of the US$57 million debt owed by ABC, into equity in a new company which it would continue to manage. In its 12 years it has paid no royalties or dividends to the government.
The new company would consist of the Bermine operations at Kwakwani and its operations at Aroaima. Other aspects of the proposal call for the sale of the new company at an appropriate time to a company which it has identified; the immediate closure of the Bermine operations at Everton, which would result in the loss of 270 jobs; and assurances of a sufficient reserve to guarantee a project life of 15 years (its ore reserves are projected to run out in three years). Alcoa proposes to downsize the workforce over a three year period from 940 400.
There is widespread opposition to the proposal in the industry and the workers at Bermine had submitted an alternative proposal.
The proposal by the employees would see CTMM, a US based company, providing working capital to rehabilitate the kiln at Everton to allow for the production of abrasive grade bauxite? up to 70,000 tonnes a year. In return it wants to be given the right to market and sell all of the company's products. It would also provide the technical/managerial skills required to beef up the operations at Everton.
The proposal requires the government to turn over its shares to the employees and for the new company to raise its own capital. It will pay royalty, harbour dues and the relevant taxes on its operations.
Meanwhile, the joint committee of which the negotiating team is a part spent Tuesday and Wednesday in Linden meeting with the management, the unions and the workers at the Linden Mining Enterprise (Linmine).
The long term mandate of the committee is to recommend measures for the resuscitation of the bauxite industry and its long term survival as well as the sustainability of the communities dependent on the industry.