Caterpillar plans setting up large-size locomotive plant in the country
O Estado de S. Paulo
Caterpillar, the international giant in the manufacturing of machinery and heavy equipment for sectors like construction and mining, is preparing the opening of a plant to produce large locomotives in Brazil. With an eye on the growth of the transport of ore and grains in the country, the group intends to produce between 60 and 70 locomotives with more than 4 thousand HP of power a year, practically half of the demand estimated for the coming years. The project is behind schedule and it should be submitted to the board of railway division of Caterpillar within the next 30 days.
"We still have no formal approval, but it is very likely we will have the new plant", says Ronaldo Moriyama, General Manager of MGE, company of improvement, maintenance and modernization of locomotives and trains Caterpillar bought two years ago in Brazil. The acquisition marked the first step of the group in the railroad sector outside the United States. For that reason it was strategic: MGE became the railroad basis of Caterpillar in Brazil and South America.
So far, Moriyama avoids talking about the values of the investment planned for the new plant, alleging the figures are still not closed. Nevertheless, the executive advances the project assures the opening of 400 direct jobs. Today, MGE has nearly 420 employees. The location of the new plant is also not defined yet, even though the first option is the São Paulo municipality of Hortolândia, in the region of Campinas, where MGE is installed. The alternative would be the region of the interior of São Paulo where there is a rail system, mainly of both wide and narrow gauges. That region comprises the municipalities of Itu, Campinas, Rio Claro, Americana and Limeira, among others.
The company projects a growing demand of 120 heavy locomotives a year for the years to come in Brazil. A machine like that costs, on average, US$ 2.6 million. According to Moriyama, only in the last five years the concessionaires of the Brazilian rail sector, such as Vale, ALL and MRS, bought nearly 450 new large-size locomotives. Nearly 30% of the total was produced locally and the rest was imported. Today there is only on manufacturer of locomotives in the country, General Electric (GE), whose plant is located in Contagem, in the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte.