Gás Natural to invest US$ 114 million in its chain
Valor Econômico
The distributor Gás Natural São Paulo Sul that completes ten years of operation in the State of São Paulo plans to invest R$ 206.7 million (US$ 114.8 million) by 2015. The value corresponds to 70% of all investment made since 2000, when the Spanish Gas Natural was granted the concession. Armando Laudório, President of the distributor, explains the new business plan will be submitted to the São Paulo State Sanitation and Energy Regulatory Agency (Arsesp). Gas Natural has became one of the main natural gas operators of the Iberian Peninsula after the merger with União Fenosa. In gas distribution, the company has 20 million clients, 10 million of which in Latin America.
The granting of Gas Natural includes 93 municipalities in the South of São Paulo in a "green field" area, which had no distribution network until 2002. The company put up a distribution network of 1,288 kilometers in 15 cities of the interior of the State and it plans to increase to nineteen the number of cities served, getting to Botucatu, Ibiúna, Itapetinga and Tietê. With that it will get to the end of 2015 with 1,750 kilometers of pipelines.
Gas Natural São Paulo Sul ended 2009 with an average of 1.275 million cubic meters of gas sold a day. Such a volume puts it among the ten largest gas distributors in the country, but it is still modest compared to that sold by Comgás, which sold an average of 11.752 million cubic meters of gas a day in 2009.
Today, the company has major industries in its list of clients, including Companhia Brasileira de Alumínio (CBA), Cargill, Ajinomoto, Gerdau and Guardian, to which will join Toyota, located in Sorocaba. The portfolio of the company has 31.8 thousand consumers of the commercial, residential, industrial classes and points of sale of vehicular liquefied natural gas (LNG).