TT Iron Steel Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed has ac­quired the iron and steel plant in the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate, Cou­va, Trinidad, af­ter sign­ing a pur­chase agree­ment with the liq­uida­tor of Arcelor­Mit­tal Point Lisas Ltd, Christo­pher Kelshall.

In a re­lease on yes­ter­day, TT Iron said it will im­me­di­ate­ly be­gin plan­ning the re­fur­bish­ment of the plant, aim­ing to com­mence op­er­a­tions with­in the next 12 months.

Chair­man Mon­ty Pem­ber­ton said: “This is an ex­cit­ing time for Trinidad and To­ba­go, as steel is fun­da­men­tal to the cir­cu­lar econ­o­my. TT Iron’s vi­sion to pro­duce green steel, on a phased com­mer­cial­ly vi­able ba­sis, will lay the foun­da­tion for the ac­cel­er­at­ed de­vel­op­ment of the lo­cal green econ­o­my. Trinidad and To­ba­go has al­ways punched above its weight in the glob­al en­er­gy in­dus­try, and TT Iron looks for­ward to work­ing with all stake­hold­ers, in the de­vel­op­ment of the sus­tain­able, prof­itable, cir­cu­lar green econ­o­my. "

TT Iron said the Point Lisas plant, which is one of the largest steel mills in the Amer­i­c­as, is ca­pa­ble of low car­bon emis­sion pro­duc­tion.

The com­pa­ny is plan­ning a phased re­fur­bish­ment process which would start with elec­tric arc fur­nace steel­mak­ing, and then in­cor­po­rat­ing nat­ur­al gas-based Di­rect Re­duced Iron (DRI) tech­nol­o­gy. The com­pa­ny said the T&T econ­o­my would ben­e­fit from the plant in the long term.

TT Iron said, "This re­fur­bish­ment and start-up phase will cre­ate sig­nif­i­cant em­ploy­ment with­in the com­mu­ni­ty, and when ful­ly op­er­a­tional, the plant will cre­ate long-term em­ploy­ment for skilled Trin­bag­on­ian work­ers. The restart of the plant will al­so cre­ate many more in­di­rect jobs, such as: main­te­nance and con­struc­tion ser­vices, port ser­vices, down­stream man­u­fac­tur­ing, de­mand for green hy­dro­gen and re­new­able en­er­gy, etc."

Founder and pres­i­dent of TT Iron Gus Hiller said, “We be­lieve there is great po­ten­tial for the plant to re­turn to the fore­front of glob­al steel­mak­ing tech­nol­o­gy and per­for­mance. "We are con­fi­dent we will be able to bring on stream and op­er­ate an ef­fi­cient, cut­ting-edge steel mill which we ex­pect, and hope will start pro­duc­tion with­in 12 months.

"The restart of this plant will cre­ate a long-term sus­tain­able in­dus­try that gen­er­ates se­cure em­ploy­ment and wealth for gen­er­a­tions to come. I am ex­cit­ed to re­turn to Trinidad & To­ba­go, to safe­ly ex­e­cute on our strate­gic plan and po­si­tion Trinidad & To­ba­go as a ma­jor glob­al play­er in the green steel mar­ket.”

TT TT Iron has signed a sales and pur­chase agree­ment to ac­quire the Arcelor­Mit­tal iron and steel plant at the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate, Cou­va in June 2023

At the time, the com­pa­ny­said the com­ple­tion of the trans­ac­tion was sub­ject to Gov­ern­ment ap­proval. Work will com­mence on the plant once all Gov­ern­ment ap­provals have been re­ceived, which TT Iron ex­pects to hap­pen with­in the next 12-18 months.

Arcelor­Mit­tal closed down its steel plant in Trinidad and To­ba­go in March 2016.