The quarrying industry has the potential to expand into a billion-dollar business, said Mitra Ramkhelawan, chief executive officer of National Quarries Company Ltd (NQCL). In an interview with the Business Guardian at last month's Trade and Investment Convention (TIC), where NQCL was a part of the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries' pavilion, Ramkhelawan said that in the past, quarrying has never been an attractive business to venture into, since it has always had a negative image. "Unfortunately quarrying has been give a negative image and as such, many persons don't look to quarrying as something to get involved in, because they see it as getting involved with something negative. Quarrying is one of the industries that leaves the smallest footprint (in T&T)," said Ramkhelawan, a University of the West Indies-trained quality engineer.
Entrepreneurs are very far from capitalising on opportunities in the quarrying sector. "Machine shops, foundries, downstream industries, for whatever reason, they seem to not want to take up the challenge to monetise materials extracted from quarries and from quarrying." How does NCQL plan to peak interest in the quarrying business? Ramkhelawan said a partnership approach with other state enterprises is necessary. "We can't just see sand and gravel. What can sand and gravel do for us? Where could it take us? It is based on how we disseminate information and how we create that knowledge-so interested persons, there is a place that they can come to, and they can get the information, they can get the technology." Other areas the quarrying sector can boost: the manufacture of frac sand for the energy sector and agricultural products, among others. Frac sand is sand that is pumped into the well during the fracturing operation. Since the sand is carried along with the fluid into the fracture, it will remain in the fracture when the pressure is removed, keeping the fracture propped open and allowing the hydrocarbons to flow to the wellbore.
Ramkhelawan said the production of frac sand is a huge industry, even in New York. "If you quote one of the people on the New York Stock Exchange, it is a literal gold mine. You have frac sand that costs US$25 per tonne to produce, being sold for US$150 per tonne; it is a billion-dollar industry. "All the difficult oil and gas reserves found in shale beds, there is a process called hydraulic fracturing that is used to extract it. In that process, a mixture of water, chemicals and frac sand, which is high-grade silica sand, is pounding at a high pressure to crack the geological structure below the surface to release the oil and gas. It is a billion-dollar industry, it is a virtual gold rush." He said NQCL is working at facilitating all levels of entrepreneurship. "We started first with looking locally at machine shops, fabricating shops, then perhaps expanding into manufacturing conveyor systems, catwalks, quarry offices." Ramkhelawan said factories in China have basic layouts that T&T's entrepreneurs can adopt. "Foundry works in T&T seem to have been on the downslide. It is a very important component to produce hard manganese steel parts. A lot of it could be produced locally, thus saving foreign-exchange resources and increasing the turnaround time for bringing parts in."
Downstream industries can also be created, such as the manufacture of glass bottles and architectural products, using quarry-sourced materials. "We have downstream products that we are looking at, such as filtered sand. There's a tremendous amount of cement pools throughout the Caribbean." Ramkhelawan said materials for the agricultural sector can be produced from quarries, as well as sand, to beautify beaches, as is done in Florida. "There are opportunities for creating beach-grade sand for nourishment of beaches. It takes thousands of years to build a beach; one storm and an entire beach can be washed away." "Raw materials-quarrying, sand and gravel-are a depleting, non-renewable natural resource. When extracted, we should try to find the highest value for that material and not just use it as a basic commodity as we do in T&T." "As you know, everything that we see above and below the ground comes from quarrying. You cannot build anything without quarrying."