Madrid/“It was written in the clouds!” For businessman William Pitt, the suspension due to lack of fuel of Sherritt’s operations in the Moa mines, in Holguín, announced this Tuesdayit was more than predictable.
“Little by little they approached failure, and not even the administrative change could stop their fall,” he tells 14ymedio the american, whose family was expropriated by the regime multiple mining properties in 1960, including the one operated by the Canadian giant in Holguín. By this he was referring to the appointment of Peter Hancock as interim director of the company, on December 8, in place of Leon Binedell, who had served as chief executive officer (CEO) for the previous four years.
According to Pitt, Sherritt’s decision – which assured that the measure is not having “an immediate impact” on the refinery that operates in Fort Saskatchewan, in the Canadian province of Alberta, as it continues to produce nickel and cobalt “finished for sale” – implies that “no more nickel and cobalt sulfide will arrive from Cuba to refine into almost pure blocks of nickel or cobalt briquettes” and that “they will only be able to process the sulfides that have already stored.” The company estimates it has enough raw materials until approximately mid-April.
“It is very expensive and very difficult to restart production in Moa”, therefore, Pitt summarizes, “this plant stoppage is going to be long”
The most significant thing, explains the businessman, is that the production process of nickel and cobalt sulfide that Sherritt uses is a “continuous process”, that is, “it is not produced in batches but in series.” And he continues: “Only at the end, when the powder is placed in their bags to be sent to Canada, can they be considered in batches.” What does this mean? “It is very expensive and very difficult to restart production in Moa.” Therefore, Pitt summarizes, “this plant stoppage is going to be long.”
To try to survive, the specialist ventures, the mining giant will have to sell all the nickel and all the cobalt it has stored in Canada. With an added and serious difficulty: the Cuban Government was paying cobalt to Sherritt to repay the debt it had of 250 million dollars, and while production is stopped, it will no longer be able to do so.
It is not another non-payment by Havana, as it could have an effect on the plants that the Canadian company operates with Energas in Mayabeque and Matanzas. “Cuba will have no way to pay for the 50% that Sherritt produces in Boca de Jaruco, Puerto Escondido and Varadero,” Pitt asserts. The consequences could be dire for Havana residents, who directly benefit from the cooking gas produced by these two plants and delivered to them by pipeline. If “everything worked well,” recalls the businessman, “it is because Sherritt managed production.”
Pitt believes that natural gas is at risk if Sherritt is withdrawn.
“Investments in oil and copper and gold mines that have been waiting for years to materialize have no chance of being implemented”
On the other hand, there are, Pitt observes, the “thousands of Cubans who work in mining” and the town of Moa itself, “who depend almost exclusively on Sherritt’s work,” and who now see their jobs ending and, with them, the food subsidies they received. The Government fully controls another mine and the Comandante Che Guevara plant and “may try to keep it operating by force even if it loses money.”
The businessman advises, with a note of optimism, that the island’s universities “do not stop training future professionals in the industry, because sooner or later, Cuba will have a global role in mining.”
It is harsher with Sherritt, who predicts very little chance of surviving the losses, “when the only operation that is economically profitable is the production of fertilizers in Canada”, for which it used the raw material extracted from Moa. “In the investment markets, the entire economic value of Sherritt plummets, just like Cuba.” He does not regret it: “They put all their hopes in Cuba and they have lost everything in Cuba.”
Another thing is, finally, certain for him: Sherritt’s experience represents the end of all the expectations placed on the Island by Australian companies. Melbana and Antilles Gold: “Investments in oil and copper and gold mines that have been waiting for years to materialize have no chance of being implemented.”
