West Suriname Plan
Economic development plan
The West Suriname Plan (Dutch: West-Surinameplan) was an economic development plan for the western part of Suriname. As originally conceived, it consists among others of the mining of bauxite in the Bakhuis Mountains, the building of a hydroelectric power plant on the Kabalebo River, and the construction of a harbour and an aluminium smelter at Apoera. The plan was the brainchild of former Surinamese Minister of Development Frank Essed.
Overview
In 1963, Operation Grasshopper found bauxite deposits in the Bakhuis Mountains. Two years later, extensive explorations were conducted by Suralco and Billiton. After a commercial joint venture established by Reynolds Surinam Mines and Grassalco failed to take off, the Surinamese government devised the West Suriname Plan to develop the region by the government.
False start
The Dutch government agreed to help execute the plan as part of the development subsidies to be given after Suriname would gain independence in 1975. Between 1976 and 1978, a railroad was constructed between Apoera and the Bakhuis Mountains by Morrison–Knudsen as main contractor and local companies as sub contractors.
After the 1980 Surinamese coup d'état Dutch development funds were frozen, and the project was halted. Low bauxite market prices in the 1980s also led to doubts about the economic feasibility of the project.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “West Suriname Plan” is economic development plan. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through West, Suriname and Plan, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4740969. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1963, 1975, 1976 and 1978.
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This entry incorporates text from “West Suriname Plan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.