The New Thriving Chinese Restaurant is adding quarrying to its menu of businesses as the establishment has applied to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for a quarry permit in Region Two citing the high demand for stone here.
“It is because of the construction [boom]…it is to meet the high demand [for stone],” a representative of the company told Stabroek News yesterday, after being referred to by New Thriving official Che Jian Ping.
The man who declined to provide his name, explained that was all he could say because he was not the “main man” responsible for the project and that he would ask that person to contact this newspaper to give details. Up to press time, there had been no call from that person.
It is unclear where the financial backing for the project will come from and if the company currently has the necessary expertise to undertake the venture which would include controlled dynamite explosions.
And while the EPA in a notice in yesterday’s Guyana Chronicle gave a link for the project summary, it did not function. Additionally, the notice could not be found on the agency’s website.
It is not the first time that the EPA has failed to upload project summaries together with its newspaper notices.
Calls to the agency’s Director Kemraj Parsram proved futile.
The EPA notice stated that New Thriving Chinese Restaurant Stone Quarry applied for a permit for Block LM40: X-1000/000/2021, located at the Essequibo and Dehalibanna Rivers in the Potaro Mining District of Region 2.
According to the EPA, it has determined that the project will not significantly affect the environment and was therefore exempt from the requirement to conduct an Environmental Impact Assessment.
The EPA also notified that another company – Atlantic Engineering Guyana Inc.’s Agatash Stone Quarry, under Yannick Van Sluytman, has applied for a permit for its project at Agatash on the Left Bank of the Essequibo River in Region 7, Mining District 3.
A source told this newspaper that more quarrying here was necessary to meet local demand since this country is “under producing” to the extent that aggregate has to be imported.
And while there have been a number of applications for EPA permits and a number of quarrying licences have been issued since 2020, the source said that it is still not clear when demand would be met.
Shipping
It was pointed out that while there are a number of quarrying areas available, shipping becomes a challenge for potential investors as those areas are usually in the hinterland and most of the demand is on the coastland.
Minister of Housing Susan Rodrigues had in March of last year explain-ed that government’s granting of additional quarry licences had been informed by high demand.
“We are aware that suppliers are struggling at the moment to fill their orders and this is why government had granted additional quarry licences. And this is why we have ensured that we zero-rate the taxes on construction materials and so on,” she had said
“Measures we have implemented make it easy for people to build their home and projects and to also make it cheaper,” she added.
Last July, Benjamin Marine and Salvage Services Inc. (BMSSI) filed an action in the High Court against the Guyana Geo-logy and Mines Commission (GGMC) which it says illegally cancelled its quarry licence and asked that the court compel both the Commissioner and the Commission to restore its licence granted back in 2017 and to quash their decision giving notice of the intention to grant the quarry licence to York Investment.
Among the many pros-pective quarry operators is prominent gold dealer Tamesh Jagmohan who was in December 2020 granted a quarry licence for operations at the 7,000-plus acres Mazaruni, Region 7 quarry.
He had said he would have been partnering an international operator who can effectively bring or satisfy local demand in the shortest possible time “so that we don’t have to import while simultaneously addressing local content and providing employment opportunities.”
In August last year this newspaper reported that the Potaro Mining Com-pany and the Malali Quarry Inc. had applied for environmental permits to operate quarries in regions Seven and Ten respectively.
The naturalised Chinese man and tenant of Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, Su Zhirong, who is at the centre of bribery allegations by US-based network VICE Media had been granted a quarrying licence for over 2000 acres of land in Region 7.
Under the company, Southern Canton Inter-national Trading Inc., Su applied for a quarry licence to operate within the Mazaruni mining district, saying the company had a planned investment of US$11.7 million.
The company was granted the licence for 2,289 acres for quarry potential, referred to as Turiruba in the Korerit and Mazaruni Rivers.
Southern Canton Inter-national Trading Inc. also had applied for a quarry licence to operate within the Mazaruni mining district.
At the same time, Highland Quarries Inc. had also applied and the EPA had stated that both were exempted from Environmental Impact Assessments.
Highland Quarries explained that the potential Quarry Operations had a start-up capital of USD 3.61 Million and a total investment of US$10.13 Million to be made.
It is expected to produce 200,000 tonnes of stone annually, increasing capacity by 10% every year for the estimated 15-year mine life of the project.
This year, businessman Nazar ‘Shell’ Mohamed signed a US$25 million agreement with China Harbour Engineering Company Limited to execute the works in Region 7 for his Hadi’s World Inc’s Quarry.
Tri-County Inc. this year applied and said that it too “recognizes the demand for aggregate, the current limitations of supply, and the anticipated increase in demand from the emerging oil and gas sector and the expanding construction sector.”
