ArcelorMittal will restart an expansion project at its Monlevade and Juiz de Fora sites in Brazil to increase its production capacity from 3.75Mt to 4.9Mt per year.
The expansion was first announced in 2007 but paused in 2009 due to the economic crisis and weak demand. The project is expected to be completed in two phases with the first phase (investment in which has now been approved) focused mainly on downstream facilities. Start-up is expected in 2015. The upstream portion of the investment remains on hold.
Company CFO Aditya Mittal explained, “We now see that demand is coming back in Brazil; it is slower than we had anticipated but it is coming back and that is why we have restarted the wire rod mill expansion which is a USD 180m project.”
Monlevade will produce 1.05Mt of coil per year, thanks to a capex investment of USD 140M. Rebar capacity at Juiz de Fora will also be increased from 50,000t to 400,000t a year and the site’s melt shop will produce an extra 200,000t of billets per year using its new ladle and sixth strand in the continuous caster.
The additional wire rod from Monlevade is aimed at increasing the supply of value-added products mainly to the domestic construction and automotive industries. Juiz de Fora’s additional rebar is expected to go into downstream cut and bend operations and to civil construction end users.
