Sidor workers refuted the figures offered by the company authorities at a press conference, highlighting that the figures for 2023 are unattainable due to the lack of maintenance and the scarcity of quality supplies.
Text: Francesca Diaz / Mail of the Caroni
Workers from Siderúrgica del Orinoco (Sidor) sent Correo del Caroní a document in which they refute the figures offered by the president of the company, Néstor Astudillo, in which he assures that they plan to reach a production of 1,700,000 tons of liquid steel by the year 2023.
Within the framework of a business conference with the private sector, the president of the Venezuelan Corporation of Guayana, Pedro Maldonado, and the president of Sidor assured that 22 units of the plant are already active and, in turn, that there is currently one monthly production of 90 thousand tons of liquid steel. They also plan to close the year with a production of 450 thousand tons of steel.
In this sense, some company workers declared that it is “impossible” to reach that figure and that, in addition, the current productivity of the state company does not even reach 5%, in contrast to the statements offered by the authorities.
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“In June, the president of Sidor announced that they would close the year with a production of 600 thousand tons of liquid steel. At that time, myself and the economist José Luis Alcocer refuted that statement, gathering more than 30 years of experience in the steel world: it is not possible to show the figures and conditions of the plants,” said Carlos Ramírez, metallurgical technician and specialist in industrial Security.
According to the workers’ statements, the production from January to October 2022 is 199,470, while the authorities assured that in the first semester they add up to 205 thousand tons. In both scenarios, the serdoristas highlighted that this is well below the productive capacity of the company.
“For those who do not know that Sidor’s installed capacity is 5,100,000 tons of steel per year, the announcement of closing the year with a production of 600,000 tons might seem heroic. However, it is a demonstration of ignorance and technical incapacity,” argued Ramírez, who stressed that the projection at the end of December could be close to 240,000 tons and not 450,000 tons as stated by the state company’s board.
An employee who was inside the plant until the first half of the year, since he was later forced out, declared that “these figures do not coincide with reality. The investment factor was necessary. The machinery does not have spare parts and that translates into paralysis. Unless they manage to start line A of the Pellas Plant, I don’t think they will reach that figure.”
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For his part, Ramírez, who also belongs to the labor organization Unidad en la Coincidencia, stressed that “it is impossible to achieve 1,700,000 tons by 2023. Right now we have problems with the refractory material due to its poor quality. There is only the month of December left and they have 190 thousand tons, let’s suppose they are producing the same amount now: there is no possibility of reaching 450 thousand tons”.
It should be noted that the refractory material is part of the import substitution plan that the company is carrying out, in this sense, the workers allege that the bricks that arrive are of poor quality compared to the imported ones.
The worker denied the production figure of 90,000 tons per month offered by Pedro Maldonado, assuring that production barely reaches 30,000 tons per month.
In this sense, the complainants asserted that stoppages within the plant are constant due to lack of investment and equipment failures, in turn emphasizing that these production figures are far from the real panorama of the company.
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