News

Good afternoon.

Please kindly note following news during the weekend.

 

Along 2 years, Terminal 6 will invest about U$S 100 Millions in order to enlarge its Puerto San Martin’s complex operative capacity. This is the country’s largest cereal exporter port.

The announcement was handled by the Minister of Transport, Guillermo Dietrich himself, who leaded the opening ceremony of Timbues COFCO’s new barges dock (Please find the info below).

This came out because, previously, the Minister, together with the Chief of Cabinet of Ministers, Marcos Peña, and the Santa Fe province’s Governor, Miguel Lisfchitz; toured the Terminal 6’s agro industrial complex, where they were met by Mr. Alberto Urquía, AGD’s Director, and Mr. Enrique Humanes, Bunge’s Southern Cone CEO; which are the companies that run and manage the complex.

During this meeting, the managers presented their 2-years -investment-plan to the authorities.

The project is already in progress and plans to expand their railroad discharge capacity, to build a barge dock for receiving Paraguayan soybean, to become more efficient the berth to export grains and also add 2.000 Mt of daily crushing to the oil plant which, today, has a capacity of about 10.000 Mt.

As an example, their railroad parking lot will be equipped to discharge up to 60 wagons without stoppages and, to improve the loading rate, the belts will be replaced. Also, new storage cells will be built as well as the placement of new cranes for opening barges.

The works are planned for 2017 / 2018 period. The investments will be ready in two years and the objective is to put Terminal 6 in front of a new stage of larger crops. Specially of maize, the new business to catch.

Also, the logistics investments intention, obeys to their need to enlarge the barge dock in order to cover the plant’s idle capacity, with Paraguaya n soybean.

The business of Paraguayan soybean in transit grew up with new Government’s arrival, since the former Government forbade it and, therefore, all terminals are setting their selves up to receive the Paraguayan Soybean and increase the production; given that the Argentina is stabilized in 60 Millions of Metric Tons and, today, the activity has an idle crushing capacity of about 30%.

 

The Chief of Cabinet of Ministers, Marcos Peña; the Minister of Transport, Guillermo Dietrich; the Santa Fe province’s Governor, Miguel Lisfchitz; and the COFCO Agri’s President, Alfonso Romero; presided the opening ceremony of Timbues COFCO’s new barges dock.

The total investment was U$S 27 Million to build a new barges dock for discharging of Paraguayan Soybeans to be processed at this plant. Also, includes disbursements to improve the inner access, to enlarge the trucks parking lot and to add cranes.

During this act, Minister Dietrich estimated that all ports and complexes at Gran Rosario area have committed investments for around U$S 21.000 Million and that is because National Government’s signals to the agri sector like taxes deduction and maize & wheat exportation freedom.

Foreseeing future logistics “bottlenecks” (ports, trucks discharging, silos), the gross of disbursements are to overcome and avoid them, taking into consideration the maize and wheat crops increasing. Not for soybeans, since, precisely, all companies are building docks to discharge the Paraguayan soybeans and, in this way, to reduce the idle capacity. Besides, the Paraguayan soybean has bigger protein capacity, which contributes to bring much value and better performance to the crushing business.

The remaining investments in progress are:

Renova: AR$ 6.200 Million

Vicentín: AR$ 1.550 Million

Molinos: AR$ 110 Million

Nidera: AR$ 255 Million

AGD: AR$ 3.875 Million ( with a new Terminal’s construction at Timbues port)

Also, Toepfer foresees an investment of about AR$ 542 Million for a new barges discharging dock (to be opened next month); and Cargill, with about AR$ 140 Million for enlarging and reinforcing of the barges dock, former cranes replacement and modification on meal production system in order to get improvements.

The rest of remaining works affect Rosario, Villa Constitución and Ramallo ports and involves around AR$ 3.690 Million.

Finally, the National Government representatives brought to attention that they will invest another AR$ 10.000 Million for Gran Rosario railroads access improvements, and Santa Fe province another AR$ 1.000 in roadworks.

 

We'll keep you posted.