Arquivos new plant - Murray Advogados

Company projects to increase its market share to 30% from current 13%

06/28/2022

The new furnace will have the capacity to produce 1,000 tonnes a day — Foto: Reprodução/Vivix

Flat glass manufacturer Vivix, owned by the Cornélio Brennand group, will invest R$1.3 billion in a new plant in the municipality of Goiana (Pernambuco), where it has been installed since 2014. With the investment, the company projects to increase its market share to 30% from the current 13%, expanding distribution outside the Northeast region.

The construction of the unit will begin in December and the start-up is scheduled for mid-2025. The new furnace will have a production capacity of 1,000 tonnes per day. Currently, the capacity of the company, which grossed R$900 million last year, is 900 tonnes/day.

The company signed on Monday a memorandum of understanding with the state government of Pernambuco to implement the venture. According to Henrique Lisboa, Vivix’s CEO, the project’s financial equation is still being closed. He says that the plant will have the contribution of shareholders’ own capital, resources from the company’s cash flow and a funding capture in the market.

The flat glass market is currently dominated by three multinationals (Cebrace, Agc, and Guardian). With the new plant, Vivix, the only 100% Brazilian, expects to become the second ranked company in the country.

Vivix’s expansion was planned since its implementation eight years ago, with investments of about R$1 billion. Mr. Lisboa says that the glass consumption per capita in Brazil is still low if compared to the United States and Europe, which indicates a great potential to expand the demand for the product, used mainly in construction, furniture, and decoration.

At the moment, the sector is going through a slowdown phase after the peak of the pandemic, following the oscillation the real estate market suffers directly the effects of high interest rates. “When we talk about high interest rates, we are talking about short term. The plant takes about 30 months to be ready and the furnace operates for 18 years,” says Mr. Lisboa.

According to the executive, the flat glass market may experience a slight contraction in volume this year, around 5%. The years 2020 and 2021 together add up to an increment of 14%.

Currently, Vivix commercializes half of its production outside the Northeast region, with road and sea distribution. With the new factory, the company wants to expand this share to up to 70% by road and sea.

The furnace will be practically all imported. It will be fueled mostly with natural gas. A residual portion will use electricity. The group has ore mines to supply the plant in a nearby region.

The unit currently employs 360 people. When it is fully operational, the workforce is expected to exceed 600 people.

*By Marina Falcão — Recife

Source: Valor International

https://valorinternational.globo.com/

New plant with capacity to produce 10,000 tonnes of chlorine a year will be built at the Petrochemical Complex of Camaçari

06/06/2022

Mauricio Russomanno — Foto: Silvia Zamboni/Valor

Unipar, the largest producer of chlorine and caustic soda and one of the main PVC manufacturers in South America, will invest R$130 million in a new plant, in Bahia. This raises to R$230 million the disbursements unveiled since the end of last year by the company to expand capacity.

The new plant, with a capacity to produce 10,000 tonnes of chlorine a year, will be built at the Petrochemical Complex of Camaçari (Bahia) and is expected to start operating in the first half of 2024. It will meet the growing demand for hydrochloric acid, sodium hypochlorite and caustic soda driven by the new basic sanitation legal framework.

“We believe in the sanitation framework as one growth driver for the market. There have already been several approvals [of projects] and auctions, and there will be more,” CEO Mauricio Russomanno told Valor.

In chlorine, the company’s installed capacity will jump to 715,000 from 680,000 tonnes/year with two expansions – in Santo André (Greater São Paulo), with an investment of R$100 million, the production of chlorine, caustic soda and hydrochloric acid will be increased by 15% as from the second half of 2023.

With the new injections, the company starts to shape a new growth cycle supported by the perspective of increasing demand for chlorine and its products driven by the new legal framework for basic sanitation in Brazil. The plant in Bahia is the first greenfield project within the company’s geographic expansion strategy, whose last major leap was taken at the end of 2016, with the purchase of the PVC plants of the Solvay group (Indupa) in Brazil and Argentina.

The company had already signaled the intention to have a plant in the Northeast region, in the wake of the high investments necessary for the region to reach the levels of universal access to water and sewage services by 2033 foreseen in the framework.

Bahia is the first step in the region, Mr. Russomanno said. “We are looking at Pernambuco and the north of the region, at states such as Rio Grande do Norte and Maranhão,” he said.

The construction of new plants and potential acquisitions, possibly branching into adjacent businesses, are on the company’s radar.

As Valor reported, Unipar studied the purchase of the chloralkali plant of Compass Minerals in Igarassu, Pernambuco, formerly Produquímica, in the first half of last year, but the deal fell apart. Compass Minerals ended up selling the plant, in addition to the chemical units for water treatment in Marechal Deodoro (Alagoas) and Suzano (São Paulo), to Cape Participações for R$236 million. These units will be operated by Chlorum Solutions.

According to Mr. Russomanno, Unipar may seek financing to execute the project in Bahia, but it has enough funds on hand to build the new plant. At the end of March, the company had more cash and cash equivalents than gross debt, with a positive balance (net cash) of R$432.9 million.

Source: Valor International

https://valorinternational.globo.com/

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Vivix to invest R$1.3bn in new plant

Unipar to invest R$130m in new plant in Bahia