Paranapanema to invest US$ 556 mi until 2013 to resume growing
DCI
Paranapanema has just announced investments to recover its place as the biggest producer of copper in the country. According to the President of the company, Luiz Antonio Ferraz Júnior, after a long period of a judicial recovery started in 2002, Paranapanema got to 2010 healthy and willing to regain its production. "We have just announced an investment of R$ 300 million (US$ 167 million) in a copper mine in Santa Catarina", said Ferraz Júnior.There has been intense activity in Paranapanema in the past months. The company has invested R$ 300 million (US$ 167 million) to enlarge its unity in Bahia; before that, it closed the purchase of European equipment for R$ 500 thousand (US$ 278 thousand) to replace the facilities if its plant in Santo André, in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo. "Paranapanema had not received investments for more than a decade, time when the company went bankrupt", explains Ferraz Júnior, who took office in August 2008.
The company currently produces and sells metallic cooper and fertilizers in the State of Bahia, and, in rolled products, it makes bars, pipes, alloys and connections made in cooper in Santo André (SP) and Serra (ES). The investment program of Paranapanema, which foresees R$ 1 billion (US$ 556 million) in investments until 2013, should equip its plants with modern technologies to have more competitive costs and offer new products. "Our goal is to increase the relevance of the domestic market in our income", said the president of the company.
The goal now is that the domestic sales correspond to 75% of the company income. "We will take advantage of the growth of Brazil in several sectors that consume copper, such as, for instance, the sectors of electric and electronic appliances and household goods, civil construction, machinery and equipment and cars", said the Executive of Paranapanema. By the end of the investments, the company projects an increase of nearly US$ 650 million in its sales; of such amount, more than half shall come from the expansion of copper metallurgy located in Dias D'Ávila, in Bahia, which is responsible for the manufacturing cathodes and rods. The intention of the group for Santa Catarina is to install a copper processing unit. The group plans on producing 40 thousand tons of copper rolled products a year. The annual sale is projected as US$ 350 million.
Besides the investments in Bahia and in Santa Catarina, the unit of rolled products located in Utinga, in Santo André (SP), will soon be rebuilt. The total cost of the project amounts to R$ 150 million (US$ 83 million) and it should be defined until the end of the year. The company is still to decide whether the new plant will be put up in the place of the current or whether it will go to a new site. With the expansion, the capacity of Grupo Paranapanema will be increased from 26 thousand to 66 thousand tons/year, generating an income of US$ 160 million as of 2012, and it will be able to produce coils of up to seven tons, more than the double of those produced today, and wider than the current ones. Another investment, of R$ 50 million (US$ 27.8 million), in the Eluma division is intended to increase from 16 thousand to 36 thousand tons the current capacity of the plant of seamless copper pipes located in Capuava, another neighborhood of Santo André (SP).