CSN buys Chinese equipment

CSN buys Chinese equipment
29 August 2006


Chinese machinery and equipment manufacturing companies have moved into the Brazilian cement sector after Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (CSN) Cimentos signed a deal with two companies for the construction of a clinker production unit in Arcos, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. Marcus Paim, director of CSN Cimentos, said that the deal was closed last week with Shenyang Heavy Machinery and Chengdu Design Institute.

The construction and assembly of the unit with an 825,000tpa clinker capacity, will be the responsibility of CSN, with the investment in this clinker unit accounting for 50 percent of total investment earmarked for this new business.

Marcus Paim said that Chengdu Design had developed factory projects for groups such as Holcim and Lafarge, which are world leaders in the sector.

The CSN project aims to produce 3Mta of cement per year as of 2008, making use of the limestone in its Arcos mine, to make the clinker, and the blast furnace slag from the Volta Redonda steelworks – 1.5Mta. Clinker and slag will be crushed and transformed into cement at two mills to be set up during 2007 at Volta Redonda.

CSN’s target market is the South-western Brazilian market, which consumes half of all cement produced in Brazil, which in 2005 was a little over 36Mt.

CSN expects to be granted an environmental license for the Arcos factory before the end of the year. CSN is the largest steel-making company in Latin America and one of the largest in the world, with its factory locate din Volta Redonda, in the Paraíba Valley region, in the South of Rio de Janeiro state. Its main factory currently produces around 6Mt of steel and more than 5Mt of laminates per year, and is considered to be one of the most productive in the world.
Published under Cement News