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Cuba signs expansion agreement with Canadian firm
SherritPRIVATE
Cuba has signed an agreement
with Canadian company Sherrit International, aimed
at expanding their joint venture in the nickel
industry, official sources reported today.
According to a press release
published in Granma daily, the agreement was signed
in the Cuban capital in the presence of President
Fidel Castro and Ian Delaney, the president of the
Canadian firm.
The agreement is aimed at
implementing a program to extend production by the
Pedro Soto Alba firm, located in Moa, (in the
eastern part of Cuba) and at a nickel refinery
located in the North American country.
The project requires
financing of around $450 million, which Sherrit
International and Cuba will equally fund.
The press release announced
that Pedro Soto Alba’s production would increase to
16,000 tons of cobalt nickel as a result of this
initiative.
In addition, the Canadian
plant will benefit from the introduction of state-of-the-art
technology, which will enable it to process the
total volume supplied by the Cuban company.
In addition to this project,
production at the Ernesto Che Guevara and René Ramos
Latour plants, together with the recent agreement
with a Chinese company, nickel and cobalt production
in Cuba is set to increase by at least 121,000 tons
over the next 30 months.
To meet the increase in
production demands, the agreement signed with
Sherrit establishes a schedule and process for
expanding the program, as well as the conditions and
allocation of mineral resources to support the
operations of the joint company Moa Niquel over a
period of 25 years.
In addition, the agreement
establishes the main measures to be applied to
project and conserve the environment in areas such
as Moa that are linked to the project. (PL) |
