Brazilian steelmaker Usiminas has announced that it has decided to cancel the project for construction of a new integrated steel plant, with an annual capacity of five million mt in the city of Santana do Paraíso, state of Minas Gerais. The decision took into account its low attractiveness due to current market conditions.
Usiminas has chosen to deepen the studies to increase the competitiveness of the industrial steel operations in order to better position the company to capture opportunities in the Brazilian steel market, by the optimization of the Ipatinga and Cubatao Plants aiming cost reduction, quality improvement and balance the capacity between steel production and rolled products, currently in expansion and by improving energy efficiency through a revision of the energy balance, including better use of the gases generated in the productive process.
The comany's board also approved the investments of Mineracao Usiminas S.A., a company controlled by Usiminas, in the amount of BRL 550 million (US$321.37 million), related to the first stage of the production capacity expansion plan, which will allow Mineracao Usiminas S.A. to reach, on the second half of 2012, the production capacity of 12 million mt per year, from the current seven million mt.