In Gerdau's quarterly earnings release Thursday, the company indicated that many of its global investments remain on track. Gerdau said it plans to maintain its R10.3 billion (US$5.02 billion) investment plan for 2012-2016 despite global economic market uncertainties, but it may be more selective in evaluating projects and flexible in the disbursement schedule, taking advantage of opportunities in markets where it is already present.
In Brazil, the installation of the hot rolled coil mill, which is Gerdau's first in the country, is still in progress at the Açominas mill (MG), and will start operating in late 2012. With an installed capacity of 770,000 metric tons per year, the equipment is geared to meet the demand from various industries, such as: oil, shipbuilding, construction (metal construction), and heavy equipment (machines and tools). In Brazil, the goal is to reach 11.5 million metric tons of annual installed capacity in 2014. Additionally, the project for the monetization of the surplus production of iron ore is still in progress, which is in the phase of seeking a strategic partner for the venture.
Gerdau also announced Thursday the resumption of R$ 1.1 billion (US$536 million) to build a new plant in Mexico through its joint venture with Gerdau Corsa. Focused on the production of structural shapes, it will have an annual installed capacity of 1 million metric tons of steel and 700,000 metric tons of rolled products. This investment will enable the replacement of imports of this product in Mexico and is expected to start up operations in the second half of 2014.
In India, the Gerdau Kalyani joint venture will begin the operation of the blast furnace this month, whose production capacity is 350,000 metric tons per year. In the same period, the company will start the operation of a power generation plant of 6 MW that will use gas from the blast furnace. In the second stage of investment, the new special steel rolling mill will start up its operations with an annual installed capacity of 300,000 metric tons. Gerdau will also continue the implementation of a coking plant with an annual capacity of 200,000 metric tons and integrated into it will be a power generation plant of 15 megawatts.