Logistics projects of Copersucar advance

Largest trader of sugar and ethanol in Brazil, Copersucar should complete by the end of this 2012/13 season one quarter of an ambitious investment plan in logistics, started in 2011/12. By April next year, the group should complete contributions of approximately $245.62 million in this area, out of a total of $982.5 million expected by 2015.

The largest investment performed so far in the period was in the Logum project, a company created to build and operate an integrated transport system of pipelines, waterways, highways and cabotage. The project, which provides for transportation of ethanol from regions of Goiás, São Paulo and Minas Gerais to the coast of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, foresees investments of $2.94 billion by 2020.

With a 20% stake in Logum, Copersucar invested so far $112.98 million in the venture and still have an additional amount of $476.51 million to invest until the end of the project. The other partners in Logum are Camargo Corrêa (10%), Raízen (20%), Odebrecht TransPort (20%), Petrobras (20%) and Uniduto Logística (10%).

Besides betting on Logum, Copersucar is also investing in complementary logistics ethanol projects. The trading company started this year the application of $73.68 million to deploy a terminal in the city of Paulínia (state of São Paulo) with a total capacity to store 2 billion liters of ethanol. In the first phase, which will be inaugurated in 2014, the annual handling installed capacity will be 180 million liters. Integrated into the Logum project, the terminal will also serve to biofuel shipments abroad.

In the field of sugar, the trader, which should earn $7.5 billion in the current cycle, opened three terminals since mid-2011, with investments of $24.56 million. The expansion of the terminal of Ribeirão Preto (state of São Paulo) started operating in March this year, and has freight reception by road and freight shipment by rail. The warehouse structure attached to the railroad was acquired in mid-2010 for $4.91 million (from the extinct trading company Crystalsev, which was controlled by Santelisa Vale, whose control was bought by Louis Dreyfus).

Served by Ferrovia Centro-Atlântica (FCA), the terminal, which had a capacity to handle 150,000 tons of sugar per year, has been expanded to support 1.5 million tons of the commodity.
The other two terminals opened in the period were the terminal of São José do Rio Preto (state of São Paulo), also multimodal (highway and railroad), and the container terminal of Guarujá (state of São Paulo), with stowage capacity of 20,000 containers annually.

All investments are being made to support the production of sugar and ethanol of members and third parties. In this harvest underway – the 2012/13 – the trading company should handle 8.7 million tons of sugar – versus 7.6 million of the season 2011/12 – and 4.8 billion liters of ethanol.

Another important player in logistics, Rumo Logística, controlled by Cosan, plans to invest $687.8 million between 2010 and 2015 to transport sugar and grains. Out of this total, $245.62 million was contributed in the period for the purchase of 50 locomotives and 929 cars. The investments in the building and expansion of terminals in the interior of the state of São Paulo and in the port of Santos, which will total $176.85 million, are underway, as well as $294.75 million for reactivation of rail stretches that were out of operation.