Sale of Bahia mining company nears completion

In addition to the ANTT review, the acquisition is tied to a rebalancing of the concession agreement, negotiations that are also underway within the regulatory agency and could later be referred to the consensus chamber of the Federal Court of Accounts (TCU), according to people familiar with the discussions.

For Mota-Engil, a Portuguese company whose major shareholders include China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), the acquisition of Bamin drew interest because it involves not only the railway segment between Ilhéus and Caetité, in Bahia state, but also a port project in Ilhéus and a mining operation in the region, said Manuel Mota, the company’s vice-CEO.

“It is a complex project, but one that encompasses three areas of expertise within the group. The port segment, where we have extensive experience in port construction and operations; the railway segment, where we also have operational expertise; and mining, where we likewise have experience in building and operating mines,” said Mota.

The executive said Mota-Engil is currently the largest Western contractor in the railway sector worldwide. “We have more than 2,000 kilometers of railways under construction in Africa and completed nearly 2,000 kilometers of railways in Latin America over the past five years.”

According to a source, issues under discussion at ANTT include extending the term of the Fiol concession and renegotiating the construction schedule so that completion of the railway would be postponed from 2027 to 2031. The assessment is that such changes would be necessary to make the acquisition viable.

There is also an expectation of additional renegotiations, though those would need to be submitted to the TCU consensus chamber because they would involve deeper contractual changes. Within the current administration, there is a view that the Fiol concession model—auctioned in April 2021 during the administration of former President Jair Bolsonaro—contained structural flaws.

ANTT did not respond to requests for comment.

The concession between Ilhéus and Caetité in Bahia state was awarded to Bamin in 2021, but construction of the segment failed to advance as planned. The company, controlled by Kazakhstan-based Eurasian Resources Group (ERG), blamed the war in Ukraine for the difficulties faced by the group. However, since the auction, the project had already been viewed as financially challenging, and Bamin’s capacity to finance construction had long been questioned within the sector. The company operates a mining project near Caetité and also plans to build a port in Ilhéus.

In recent years, the federal government has sought a solution for the project, which is considered strategically important from a logistics standpoint. The segment is the first stretch of the Fiol railway, which also includes two additional sections: an intermediate segment connecting Caetité to Correntina, also in Bahia state, and another expected to extend the network to Mara Rosa, in Goiás state. The latter section is expected to connect with the North-South Railway and with the Fico railway currently under construction by Vale.

The federal government had at one point pressured Vale to acquire the asset. The mining company studied the acquisition in partnership with Cedro and BNDESPar, the investment arm of Brazil’s National Development Bank (BNDES), but the plan did not move forward.