08/08/2008 14h44
ArcelorMital decides to invest another US$ 1.6 billion in Brazil
Valor Econômico 08/08/2008
The high demand of steel for use in industries and civil construction has unleashed a race for investments in Brazil on the part of the only three local manufacturers of common long steel - Gerdau, ArcelorMitral and Votorantim. One day after the Gerdau group announces that it will build a new plant in the Northeast, specifically in the State of Pernambuco, its rival ArcelorMitral informed yesterday a new expansion plan in this segment, the one that most grows in Brazil. Budgeted in US$ 1.6 billion, such value adds up to the investment of US$ 1.2 billion, as the group announced in the beginning of the year, in order to duplicate its plant in João Monlevade (MG). Those funds are part of the US$ 5 billion package that Lakshimi Mittal, chairman, main officer and main shareholder of ArcelorMitral, assured, in a visit to the country in the end of 2007, he would invest here in a period of five years from 2008 on. As the company informed, the plan aims at adding 65% of the productive capacity to the currently existing capacity in the country in four steel plants - João Monlevade and Juiz de Fora, in Minas, Piracicaba, in São Paulo, and Vitória (ES). Currently, those plants are able to produce 3.9 million tons of gross steel a year. With the new investments that must contemplate two units, as was verified by
Valor - being a new one in the Northeast and an enlargement of the plant of Juiz de For a - ArcelorMittal will be able to manufacture 6.5 million tons a year from the end of 2011 on. The period of implementation of the two new projects is 30 months. ArcelorMittal took advantage in order to enter new operation segments. In addition to the traditional products it already makes, such as wire-rod and steel beams, it will introduce steel for application in the car industry (special bars) and other industrial uses (medium- and heavy- steel framing). Altogether, it will add 500 thousand tons of wire rod, 520 thousand tons of steel beams, 500 thousand of special bars and 650 thousand of steel framing. The Gerdau plant in the Northeast foresees 500 thousand tons in the beginning, and it may be duplicated, with an investment of US$ 400 million. Votorantim, on its turn, will put in operation the new plant in Resende (RJ) in 2009, with a volume of 1.05 million tons at a cost of R$ 1.2 billion (US$ 764.3 million).
