Logistics attracts new partner to Copersucar
Valor Econômico
So far only a client of Copersucar, the largest company selling sugar and ethanol in the country, Aralco, from Araçatuba (SP), decided to become a partner and started to thicken the team of plants of São Paulo´s west region that integrate the group. With the capacity to grind 7 million tons of sugar cane in four industrial units, Aralco entered the list of top five associates and should strengthen the performance of Copersucar in the west, the second largest center of production of sugarcane in Brazil. From the next season (2011/12), with more this adhesion, Copersucar will start selling the production of sugar and alcohol from mills that grind 121 million of tons of sugarcane, compared to the 114 million recorded in the current finishing cropping season.
In 2014, Aralco intends to put into operation its fifth plant, already named Paisagem (Landscape), also in São Paulo, with a grinding capacity of 2.5 million of tons of cane per harvest. According to the company's industrial director, José Bilhamil Pelho Filho, the project already has the environmental permit and should be initiated between 2011 and 2012, with resources estimated in R$ 160 million (US$ 94.1 million). The mix of this unit will allocate 70% of the sugar milling to sugar, in order to balance the production of the company, nowadays more alcohol profile.
Founded in the late 70s, Aralco was the second sugarcane plant to settle in the Araçatuba region - so far, the sugarcane production was concentrated at the center of Ribeirão Preto (SP), says Pelham. Besides the four plants, Aralco has under its umbrella a company of cane cultivation that is responsible for providing 80% of what the group consumes per season.
The adhesion reinforces the strategy of Copersucar of growing also in the west region of São Paulo, the latest frontier of expansion in the state. From the Aralco side, the company sees in the association a way of taking advantage of the logistical opportunities offered by the selling company. "We are in one of the sugar cane growing regions of São Paulo more distant of the ports, what increases our demand for logistics competitiveness. However, our assessment is that we will not get that acting alone", says Pelho.