US-based firm unveils US$750M revitalisation plan for shuttered Point Lisas steel plant

1,000 jobs on offer

A decade after the closure of ArcelorMittal left hundreds jobless and a premier industrial asset abandoned, a million-dollar investment described as “Lazarus arising from the dead” is now bringing heavy manufacturing back to the Point Lisas Industrial Estate.

Local subsidiary Ibis Steel Company, backed by United States parent firm Pinnacle Steel and Vanadium Corporation, officially kicked off site refurbishment yesterday, with plans to pump an overall investment of US$750 million into the development, with the potential to generate up to 1,000 permanent jobs. High-ranking diplomatic and government officials, including US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, gathered at the facility to mark what Landau called the “resurrection” of the nation’s steel industry and a key breakthrough in international mineral supply chains.

The Point Lisas steel plant, long considered the pride of Trinidad’s industrial sector, had sat idle for a decade following ArcelorMittal’s sudden closure in 2016, which left 644 workers displaced.Speaking at a gate-opening ceremony yesterday, Landau emphasised that the reopening represents a tangible victory in turning political campaign promises into real economic progress, as he praised Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Minister of Foreign and Caricom Affairs Sean Sobers for driving negotiations to completion.

Note : Plant will make military grade steel for the US military

Opened as ISCOTT in Point Lisas under PM Eric Williams in 1980.

Prof Ken Julien was the big Cahuna those days

Later politics tek ova.. at the steel mill .and the rest is history

@Narper

Narps....

All the big Kahuna's left T&T for Canada.

They dont live very far from your place of abode ...

The Price of Progress: Environmental Grief and the Flight from Point Lisas

The human and environmental toll of industrial expansion in Trinidad and Tobago has reached a heartbreaking threshold. As the heavy industrial complexes of Point Lisas continue to drive economic metrics, a quiet tragedy is unfolding across the landscape of South Trinidad. The promise of industrial wealth has been bitterly compromised by a rising tide of severe health crises, leaving local families to bear the physical and emotional cost of pollution. For many residents living within a 40-kilometer radius of these plants, the future holds a terrifying reality: the billions generated by national oil and gas reserves will never be enough to fund the specialized, long-term healthcare required to treat the escalating cancer epidemic currently trailing through these communities.

This compounding ecological grief has driven a profound demographic shift, fracturing the social fabric of the nation. Recognizing the toxic reality of the environment, a significant portion of the country's wealthy elite and influential figures have quietly migrated to safer shores, with many settling across Canada. Yet, while those with financial mobility can escape the immediate geographic dangers, the families left behind face an increasingly hazardous environment. The Gulf of Paria, once a source of life and sustenance, now suffers from heavy metal toxicity and industrial carbon contamination, turning local catches into a health hazard. The reality of watching loved ones endure painful, preventable illnesses while systemic social safety nets and state pension funds remain indifferent creates an overwhelming sense of abandonment, a stark reminder of what happens when corporate profit is valued over the preservation of human life.

Note : A part of an article I wrote for one of the Kahuna's that died of Kidney cancer a decade ago.