Scrap iron ex­porters are be­ing asked to prompt­ly re­move any car­go with old met­al from the Point Lisas Port in Cou­va.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, PLIPDE­CO said ef­fec­tive im­me­di­ate­ly, the Port of Point Lisas will not be re­ceiv­ing at its gate or load­ing on­to any ves­sel, car­go clas­si­fied as old met­al for the pur­pose of ex­port.

This is in keep­ing with the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­hi­bi­tion on the im­por­ta­tion and ex­por­ta­tion of scrap-iron met­al for six months, which kicked in last Fri­day.

The com­pa­ny warned ex­porters who cur­rent­ly have such car­go on the Point Lisas port to arrange with their re­spec­tive ship­ping lines or agents for its prompt re­moval.

PLIPDE­CO al­so re­mind­ed that car­go re­main­ing on the port for more than 14 days from when it en­tered shall be sub­ject to stor­age charges as per the port tar­iff.

Ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny, the re­stric­tion will cease on Feb­ru­ary 28, 2023, con­sis­tent with the ex­pi­ra­tion of Le­gal No­tice 164.

Cab­i­net in­sti­tut­ed a tem­po­rary ban on met­al ex­ports fol­low­ing the wide­spread theft of cop­per and oth­er met­als at state fa­cil­i­ties which has cost mil­lions in loss­es.