LIMESTONE, Maine — The plan for a Chinese manufacturer to build railcars at the former Loring air base has lost some urgency for the company, but the official leading the base redevelopment said a deal’s still in the works.
China North Industries Group Corp., or Norinco, has been discussing plans of manufacturing railcars at Loring for several years. Last year, the company paid $40,000 to keep an option on part of the Blue Goose Building, half of which is used by the Maine Military Authority.
Carl Flora, president of the Loring Development Authority, said at a Dec. 9 meeting that Norinco remains interested in the project, “but there are some headwinds they’re facing that perhaps they weren’t a year ago.”
Flora said the company’s challenges include a softer Chinese economy and slowing demand for railcars designed to new North American safety standards for shipping crude oil.
“I no longer see that project as something that Norinco is in a rush to complete,” Flora said.
“This is a commitment that we’re going to be here for 30 years, so we want to make sure we do it right.”
The company also has been unable to get a work visa for a key executive, Flora said. Allowing Norinco’s executive to enter the United States is crucial for the project, as that person needs to oversee the project’s startup and development.
Another division of the state-owned Chinese company came under scrutiny at the United Nations earlier this year, after a report found Norinco sold more than $20 million worth of weapons to South Sudan’s government in 2014, prompting the U.S. government to advocate for an arms embargo.
The company was sanctioned by the U.S. government in 2003 for allegedly providing ballistic missile systems to Iran and again in the 1990s after being implicated in a sting operation conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Flora said before a trip to China to meet with Norinco officials last year that he asked the company about those past sanctions and didn’t see any connection between the company’s rail transportation division and the arms production division.
Flora was not immediately available for comment Monday about whether there was any connection between the United Nations report and difficulty getting a visa for the Norinco executive.
Miles Williams, a member of the development authority’s board, suggested earlier this month that the Loring Development Authority could perhaps convince Norinco to broaden the scope of its project in Maine, as the company manufactures other construction equipment.
“We’ve had those discussions with them, and they’ve mentioned sideline aspects to their railcar enterprise,” Flora said, “but the railcar, to date, is their central focus.”
Flora said new standards for tank cars still give shippers a five-year grace period to make upgrades.
“This is still an area where there is a lot of active interest, it just probably isn’t going to happen soon,” he said.
Those economic pressures aside, Williams said he’d hate to see any project delayed because of a technicality.
“I’d just hate to see them abandon the project because it might take two or three years for their executive to obtain a visa,” Williams said.
Bangor Daily News writer Darren Fishell contributed to this report.