By Earl Moxam, Senior Gleaner WriterON JULY 28, 1966, Robert Lightbourne, the Minister of Trade & Industry, tabled a Ministry Paper (#52) in the House of Representatives, setting out details of the agreement reached for the establishment of a new alumina plant at Nain in St. Elizabeth by the consortium to be known as Alumina Partners of Jamaica (ALPART).
The members of the consortium were Reynolds Jamaica Alumina Limited, Kaiser Jamaica Corporation and Anaconda Jamaica Inc. All three were newly formed and wholly owned subsidiaries of the American firms, Reynolds Company, Kaiser Alumina and Chemical Corporation, and Anaconda Company.
Construction of the plant was estimated to cost 62.5 million pounds (US$175 million in 1966) with an initial capacity of 875,000 short tons of alumina per annum, but with the option of expansion to 1.3 million short tons. Production was set to commence in 1969.
According to the Ministry Paper, this new investment would result in a doubling of Jamaica's alumina capacity and would be expected to produce additional revenue of 3 - 3.5 million pounds per annum.
According to Mr. Lightbourne, the establishment of alumina plants in Jamaica was particularly important since the country received twice as much revenue from each ton of bauxite processed into alumina in Jamaica as it received from a ton of bauxite that was exported.
As Mr. Lightbourne explained, the new alumina plant, together with the expansion being undertaken by the other existing alumina company (ALCAN), would make Jamaica the second largest alumina producer in the Western world, second only to the United States.
On August 9, 1966, a motion was passed, approving the agreement set out in the Ministry Paper.
During the preceding debate, Opposition Leader Norman Manley, while welcoming the ALPART agreement, highlighted the importance of Jamaica deriving maximum economic benefits from this and other companies operating in the local industry.
Jamaica, he said, had known bauxite reserves of approximately 600 million tons, but warned that this was not a renewable resource and would have to be carefully exploited while it lasted.
He said: "Practically nowhere in the world today, does any small country with an exploitable resource get the full advantage of what nature has given it. All the great metropolitan countries exploit their raw material providing continuous employment and bringing growth and stability to their economies, from start to finish. We, little countries, all we do is allow people to come and take it away and give us some small fractional benefit out of it. It is our only major resource and it is depleting and for certain one day we won't be able to go to Australia (with known reserves then of one billion tons of bauxite) and get raw material when ours is all gone".
Mr. Manley admitted however that "This (agreement) is a breakthrough, a good development but not the end of the road and I believe in the future we are going to see more development equally important to Jamaica and her share in one great mineral resource".
