Chilean cement producer Cemento Polpaico will invest US$13m-14m this year, company executives said at an ordinary shareholders meeting.

The majority of investment will go to advance the implementation of co-processing technology, which uses alternative fuels to fire furnaces, newspaper La Segunda reported.

Among such alternatives are worn rubber tires and oils that normally end up in illegal waste dumps.

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A US$6.4mn co-processing platform will begin operations during the first half of this year, the paper quoted Polpaico president Juan Antonio Guzmán Molinari as saying.

Switzerland’s Holcim controls Polpaico, which posted a 14.9bn-peso
(US$25.6mn) consolidated net profit in 2004, up 45.3 per cnet from the previous year, and is one of Chile’s top three cement producers.