Alpart to Reopen Soon

The process to reopen the Jiuquan Iron and Steel Company (JISCO) Alpart facility in Nain, St. Elizabeth, is set to commence in short order.

This disclosure comes from Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining, Hon. Floyd Green, who was addressing the National Minerals Week church service, held at the Black River Independent Baptist Church in St. Elizabeth on May 25.

Before closing in 2019 to make way for the modernisation and expansion of the facility, JISCO Alpart was credited for its vast contribution to the island’s mining sector.

“One of the things that we’re significantly focused on for this year is the reopening of Alpart. Alpart is our only high-temperature aluminium refinery,” Mr. Green said.

He outlined that during a meeting with the owners of the facility, it was noted that more than 300 persons have been employed over the last few months to do an asset verification exercise as a precursor for the reopening of the refinery.

“I want to assure the residents of St. Elizabeth that we expect that by the end of the year, Alpart will start the process of reopening, and that will be a massive boost for the parish,” the Minister said.

Mr. Green further informed that the Ministry will be looking to diversify the island’s minerals.

“For a long time, we have spoken about bauxite. We do a lot of limestone but some of you may know that, historically, Jamaica does have quantities of gold,” he said.

“Jamaica [also] has quantities of copper and I believe that we need to start the process this year to finally [look into] whether we have enough to set up a gold industry, [and] whether we have enough to set up a copper industry,” Mr. Green said.

Also at the service were Minister of State in the Ministry, Hon. Franklin Witter and Chief Technical Director in the Ministry, Courtney Cole.

National Minerals Week is being observed from May 25 to 30, under the theme ‘Minerals for National Development’.

Among the activities for the Week will be a bauxite land titling and subdivision permitting conference, minerals sector investor conference and technical conference.