The Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries (MEEI) has is­sued “hold over” let­ters to 25 op­er­a­tors in the min­er­als sec­tor, al­low­ing them to con­tin­ue min­ing and pro­cess­ing ac­tiv­i­ties while ap­pli­ca­tions for re­newed li­cences are be­ing re­viewed.

The min­istry said the let­ters were is­sued on May 22 to bona fide op­er­a­tors with ac­tive op­er­a­tions whose min­ing and pro­cess­ing li­cences had ex­pired and were in the process of re­new­al.
Un­der the arrange­ment, the op­er­a­tors will be al­lowed to con­tin­ue op­er­at­ing un­der the same terms and con­di­tions as their pre­vi­ous li­cences for a pe­ri­od of one year.

In a re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day, the min­istry said the move was aimed at en­sur­ing there was an ad­e­quate sup­ply of min­er­als at af­ford­able prices to sup­port the coun­try’s in­fra­struc­ture and in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes.

The min­istry point­ed to the Gov­ern­ment’s Re­vi­tal­iza­tion Blue­print pro­gramme, rolled out in No­vem­ber 2025, which in­cludes 129 ma­jor con­struc­tion projects across T&T.
Ac­cord­ing to the MEEI, main­tain­ing ag­gre­gate sup­ply is crit­i­cal to ramp­ing up con­struc­tion ac­tiv­i­ty and keep­ing prices sta­ble for con­sumers and con­trac­tors.

The min­istry al­so said the de­ci­sion was ex­pect­ed to have a pos­i­tive im­pact on em­ploy­ment, with in­creased con­struc­tion ac­tiv­i­ty like­ly to cre­ate jobs not on­ly in con­struc­tion but al­so in re­lat­ed sec­tors, in­clud­ing trans­porta­tion, build­ing ma­te­ri­als, food ser­vices, and pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the min­istry said it was re­view­ing a list of in­ac­tive op­er­a­tors with ex­pired li­cences to de­ter­mine whether they were in­ter­est­ed in re­sum­ing op­er­a­tions as part of ef­forts to fur­ther in­crease ag­gre­gate pro­duc­tion.

The MEEI al­so said it re­mained com­mit­ted to as­sist­ing new ap­pli­cants seek­ing li­cences for min­ing and pro­cess­ing ac­tiv­i­ties.
As part of that ini­tia­tive, the min­istry will host quar­ter­ly “Open House Ses­sions” in June for per­sons seek­ing to re­new ex­pired li­cences or ap­ply for new ones. Dates for those ses­sions are ex­pect­ed to be an­nounced in the com­ing weeks.