The Latin American flat and long steel producing unit of the Italian-Argentine Techint Group, Ternium is set to make the largest capital expenditure in history with $4.0 billion to $4.1 billion in 2024 and 2025 mainly to complete one of its largest projects in Mexico, company executives, including Ternium CEO Máximo Vedoya, told investors.
“Our total CapEx will be around $2.3 billion. This includes Usiminas. A big part of that is going to the Pesquería project, of course. 2025 will probably be the year of more CapEx in our history because of the Pesquería project,” Vedoya told analysts and investors.
Separately, Chief Financial Officer Pablo Brizzio said: “We expect to have a total CapEx of between $1.7 billion to $1.8 billion in 2024”.
That multi-million dollar investment will be primarily to complete the third phase of the Ternium Industrial Center in the northern city of Pesquería, in the Mexican state of Nuevo León. The third phase includes a new steel mill to produce 2.6 million metric tons (mt) of slab.
Ternium expects to invest approximately $2.6 billion in the construction of a steel mill based on an electric arc furnace (EAF), a plant for direct reduced iron (DRI) with an annual capacity of 2.1 million mt. For this project, they said they continue to advance in the civil works, foundations and structural installations. In addition, key operating contracts have been awarded and are on track to begin production in mid-2026.
In addition, they commented that in the third quarter, the operation of the pickling line began, which has a pickling capacity of 550,000 tons per year. Also, three of the five lines of the new finishing center in Pesquería have begun to operate and are currently in the process of commissioning.
Thus, Pesquería now has 310,000 mt a year of customized products capacity. During the next two months, Ternium plans to start up the two remaining lines in the finishing center.
They also said that they continue to make steady progress on the 600,000 mt per year galvanizing line and the 1.6 million mt per year cold rolling mill. Ternium plans to begin this operation at the end of 2025 and beginning of 2026.
With the start of operations of these investments, “Ternium's operational efficiency will be improved and dependence on external suppliers will be reduced, which will translate into cost savings and better profit margins,” said Vedoya.