September 2015 Issue Business View Caribbean

52 September 2015 - Business View Caribbean Guaico, Sangre Grande, and the 118-acre, Verdant Vale blue limestone quarry in Blanchisseuse. It has a total of eight active pits and four wash plants. The mined aggregate is transported by truck to the wash plants where it is washed, screened, sized, and pro- cessed. The company’s employee base fluctuates be- tween 150 and 250 workers. All of National Quarries products are used domesti- cally, as are all the aggregates from all of the country’s other open-pit quarries. “Our customer base is wide- ranging and very diverse,” says Cook, “from the aver- age person who is just seeking to get a few yards of gravel to undertake repairs of their home to larger, es- tablished organizations and companies, such as block manufacturers and contractors. [We’re also here] to satisfy large-scale projects, some of which may be gov- ernment projects.” One of the biggest construction projects going on in Trinidad right now, and one which Cook suggests that “everything is going to,” is the construction of the Solo- mon Hochoy Highway extension from San Fernando in south Trinidad to Point Fortin by way of the southern towns of Debe, Penal, Siparia, Fyzabad, and La Brea. This four-lane, 30-mile carriageway is the largest and most complex infrastructure development that has ever been carried out in Trinidad and Tobago. Cook concurs: “It’s a massive undertaking – ten interchang- es, five overpasses, six underpasses, ten bridges, 58