Manufactured items are the focus at ALL RR

América Latina Logística (ALL) wants to conquer shlippers of the  metallurgical, forest and building industries in São Paulo, the main Brazilian manufacturing center. The company, that started to operate in the area with Brasil Ferrovias´ purchase, in May 2006, intends to invest, in partnership with the shippers, in the reactivation of branch lines that were not being used and in the adaptation of freight cars. From about 3 thousand cars that compose the so-called “dead fleet” of Brasil Ferrovias, 800 can be used to take industrial loads.

Although it acted in an industrial area, Brasil Ferrovias´ operation was predominantly agricultural. We want to arrive at a balance among commodities and industrialized goods, as it already happens in the South of the Country, affirms Alexandre Campos, director of industrialized products.

Today the main contract of manufactured goods in that area is with the Companhia Brasileira de Alumínio (CBA) of the group Votorantim, with the movement of 80 thousand to 100 thousand tons a year, according with the executive. We have a minimum participation to the Port of  Santos. Starting from next year we will make possible operations with containers Campos says.

The executive doesn´t reveal the estimate of movement of industrial cargo in São Paulo for 2007, but he says that the objective is to prioritize more profitable flows, of larger volumes, preferentially with loads of import return, as steel, for instance.

According to ALL informations, in the area of the old Brasil Ferrovias, that includes the states of São Paulo, Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, 1.54 billion NT/KM of industrial loads were transported last year. The income with those operations totaled U$ 76 million. The volume of agricultural commodities, however, is well more expressive. It went to  7.73 billion NT/Km, with a revenue of U$ 339 million.

To face the increase of the demand, ALL informs that it plans to invest U$ 250 million in 2007 in the network south and north (of old Brasil Ferrovias). The resources will be applied in improvements in the permanent way, locomotives and technology.

Brasil Railroads´ purchase by ALL was approved with restrictions by Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica (Cade). In April 18, Cade conditioned the approval of the business to the signature, in the maximum period of 60 days, of a Term of Commitment of Acting that will fasten goals of efficiency of the rail networks.

ALL will have to inform, for instance, amounts of products that can be transported by the referred networks, in a certain time, without elevation of prices. When ALL acquired, for U$ 700 million in shares, Brasil Ferrovias, that included the concessions of Ferroban, Ferronorte and Novoeste, it arrived at the center-west – Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul States – and the whole State of São Paulo. ALL, that operates a total of 21 thousand kilometers of trach, ended 2006 with a consolidated gross revenue of U$ 733 million. Considering Brasil Ferrovias´ income, that value rises to U$ 1.145 million.

In 2006, the manufactured goods transported by ALL as a whole increased 9,2%, pulled mainly by a growth of 21,9% of the intermodal flows, standing out metallurgical (37%), containers (22,6%) and forest (22,1%). In the flows exclusively rail, the company registered a growth of 2,6%, with increase of 11,1% in the building segment and 4,1% in the movement of fuel.

Fonte: Gazeta Mercantil