Brazil-based steel producer Gerdau plans to reach a 24 million metric ton iron ore processing capacity by 2020, the company said on Tuesday in a filing to Comissao de Valores Mobiliarios (CVM), the country’s market regulator.
Last year, the company announced it would expand its mining activities as well as its flat products distribution in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The increase of its iron ore processing capacity is among several other plans that Gerdau has in the state, which total a 5.8 billion reais (US$2.59 billion) expected investments.
The document filled within CVM says Gerdau will gradually expand its iron ore capacity to 11.5, 18 and 24 million mt per year by 2014, 2016 and 2020, respectively. The document also highlights that the company is studying the possibility of having its own port terminal by 2020.
Gerdau’s own port would be located in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in the Sepetiba area. In a first phase of the project, it would have the capacity to load 25 million mt/year of iron ore, the company said.
One of the company’s main strategies for iron ore is to improve the logistics between its mines and mills, Gerdau said in the document. Within the $2.59 billion planned investment, Gerdau plans to build a railway terminal and expand its iron ore treatment unit 2 by 2016. By 2020, a third iron ore treatment unit would be complete, which in turn, would make its processing capacity to reach 24 million mt per year.