Limestone exports set to triple!

The Jamaica Observer

By Codie-Ann Barrett, Senior Business Reporter

May 24, 2023 12:11 am

THE US market now has a significant demand for limestone, and the managing director of Jamaica Bauxite Mining (JBM) believes Jamaica can capitalise on this demand and boost economic growth.

I was inspired to write about the bauxite/alumina industry, primarily in Jamaica, from a recent visit to Discovery Bay, St Ann, where the plant of Discovery Bauxite owned by Atlantic Alumina Company is located and an article by Lance Neita in The Sunday Gleaner, December 12, titled ‘An injunction not only on mining but on huge chunk of economy’ (sic).

In international trade, the goods and services which were the pillars supporting Jamaica’s economy in the latter half of the 20th century were sugar, bananas, bauxite/alumina and tourism. Today, sugar and bananas are practically gone and I have addressed these in previous articles. The value of these agricultural products, and add cocoa, coffee, ginger and pimento, have not been replaced.

Tourism is now considered the principal pillar. Bauxite/alumina remained quite strong up to about 2012 contributing more than 30 per cent of total goods export earnings. It now seems to be on shifting sands. This may not only be resulting from environmental concerns, such as land degradation, deforestation, water contamination, and air pollution, as well as the mud lakes. Contributing to the instability are company closures, production shortfalls, uncertain development plans, and high cost of energy.

However, the importance of this industry to the Jamaican economy remains in spite of all these challenges. It was interesting to note from STATIN statistics that in 2019, alumina was 42 per cent of the total value of all goods exports; and in 2020 and 2021, 35 per cent.

In the 1950s and 1960s, bauxite mining in Jamaica was the new industry which heralded robust growth in the country and gave hope that Jamaica was on the road to prosperity as it sought self-determination. Jamaica was the leading bauxite producer in the world and had begun refining it into alumina (aluminium oxide). This, although Jamaica was not the first British West Indian territory to commence bauxite mining. Bauxite production had begun in Guyana in 1916. Among current CARICOM members, its ex

“Jamaica has been blessed with over 70 per cent of our lands consisting of limestone and in our range we have some of the highest purity of limestone,” said JBM Managing Director Donna-Marie Howe during an interview with the Jamaica Observer.

She says the capacity to increase limestone exports exists at Reynolds Pier in St Ann, which has been exporting limestone for over 25 years. She added that since Mexico stopped supplying the US with limestone, a huge gap has now been left unfilled and international players are now turning their attention to Jamaica.

“The demand, because of construction, has increased, and Jamaica has been an attraction for these big companies overseas because of the positioning; we are in the nearshore to source our limestone,” she said.

The pier has undergone upgrades in the last year through a partnership with the Port Authority of Jamaica (PAJ), which allows it to facilitate larger vessels.

So far, Reynolds Pier has been aligned with three major international partners that dominate the US limestone aggregate market and plans to strengthen its appeal to trade with more international partners.

“We have been speaking to these off-takers in the US. We are in direct conversation and on the cusp of signing joint venture deals with these off-takers,” Howe told the Business Observer.

Currently, the pier has only exported 500,000 tonnes of limestone per year; however, it has the capacity as a conduit to export 2.5 million metric tonnes a year without major renovations and improvements to its port. However, Howe says the aim is to expand its export capacity.