Libra installs new warehouse and starts using MRS branch-line
Valor Econômico 11/05/2007
Two companies of the Libra group, which are focused on activities relative to the port of Santos, prepare improvements that characterize verticalization of their logistics operations, with investments of R$ 25 million (US$ 14.4 million). Libraport-Campinas, authorized to operate as a dry port, will open, in 2008, a railroad branch-line connected to the MRS, in order to get connected to the dock of Santos. The company plans to make daily round trips and cater to the client companies which use containers for both exportation and importation. Libra Cubatão, on its turn, opens, on the 16th, a warehouse-cold storage house in Vila Parisi. With this new warehouse, the company intends to cater to the market of perishable products or products with controlled time. The respective investments are R$ 7 million (US$ 4 million) and R$ 18 million (US$ 10.3 million). The new railroad facilities of Campinas will replace the current road modal, with lower costs and higher safety margin, according to the company's CEO, Ricardo Arten. The detour, with 2.6 kilometers of extension, toward the MRS railroad system, will allow traveling a little more than 200 kilometers, to Santos, in 16 hours. Each train will bear the equivalent to 40 Teus (Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units), which will travel back and forth in synchrony, taking products to be exported, previously cleared by the Federal Revenue, health and agricultural authorities, and bringing imported goods. Libraport Campinas, authorized to work with the areas with customs office, has three warehouses for this sort of cargo, with a total area of 17.2 thousand m2, in addition to two other warehouses for local cargos, with 10 thousand m2 and a 15-thousand-m2 yard for containers. The cargos, which come from various parts of the country, are prepared and loaded into or unloaded from containers. Both terminals explored by Libra in the port of Santos are responsible for nearly 33% of the total activity of the dock. Until June, the operations amounted to 462 thousand Teus.