Last week’s announcement by the Chief Executive Officer of the Russian-owned aluminum producer RUSAL, Evgenii Nikitin that the company plans to pump US$5.2 billion into the upgrading of its bauxite plants in the Caribbean will be met with mixed reactions here in Guyana where the company has a 90% share in the Berbice-based Aroaima Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc (BCGI), the other 10% of the shares being owned by the Government of Guyana.
In a country where unemployment is high and threatening to climb higher on the back of job losses resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic both the authorities here and the workers will be relieved to know that at least some jobs will be retained through RUSAL’s operations. Time was when the local subsidiary of the Russian aluminum giant, BCGI, used to produce and ship around 1.5 million tonnes of bauxite to the RUSAL-owned Nikolaev refinery in the Ukraine annually. Its licence also extended to bauxite mining at Linden, Kwakwani and Ituni, where much of the country’s bauxite is found.