09/23/2008 08h59
Plants create commercialization branch
Valor Econômico - 09/23/2008
Almost six months after getting disconnected from Copersucar, São Martinho joined to São João (USJ) and Santa Cruz groups, also in São Paulo, to create Allicom, which will be the new commercial branch of sugar and alcohol of the three partners. Allicom appears as the third biggest seller of those products in the country, only behind Copersucar itself and the Cosan group. In the current harvest (2008/09), the expectation of the trio is to deal, together, 1 million tons of sugar and 1.2 billion liters of alcohol in the domestic and foreign markets. The three groups estimate that they will produce 23 million tons of cane in this cycle, and they foresee 26 million for 2009/10. From that amount, São Martinho responds for 54% of the volume of the processed sugar cane, São João for 30% and Santa Cruz for the remaining 16%. Allicom is formed by a steering committee, which has one representative of each group. In this first year of administration, executive Maria Carolina Ometto Fontanari, vice chairman of the USJ Group will be the committee's president. Each year there will be a rotation in the presidency. Differently from Copersucar, where each associated plant delivers all the production of sugar and alcohol to the cooperative society, which adopts the same commercial administration for all member groups, Allicom must respect each partner's strategy. Despite the commercial alliance, each partner in Allicom will keep its financial and administrative management independent. The three companies were associated to Copersucar. São Martinho was one of the founding plants and decided to leave the cooperative society at the end of the harvest of 2007/08. São João was associated until 1999, and Santa Cruz decided to leave in 2004. Together, Santa Cruz and São João decided to make a commercial alliance. This year, both called São Martinho to be part of the structure, which became Allicom. In the first moment, the three groups do not want to have new partners in Allicom. One of the most important steps already taken by Allicom was the association to Uniduto Logística, a company created by the Cosan, Copersucar and Crystalsev groups to developing, building and operating an alcohol transportation system by ducts, connecting the São Paulo interior to a port terminal on the coast of the state. The total investment in Uniduto, which should start operating in 2011, is foreseen at R$ 1.64 billion (US$ 1 billion). The objective of the new company is to reduce the costs with ethanol transportation by 35to 40% and expand the capacity of the Brazilian exportation from the current 3.5 billion liters to 14 billion per year.
