CMPC agreed a protocol for infrastructure works with the State of Rio Grande do Sul and began the process of environmental requests for specific studies for a pulp mill of up to 2.5 million tons of pulp in the municipality of Barra do Ribeiro.
CMPC and the State of Rio Grande do Sul have agreed a protocol of intentions to advance in the evaluation of a comprehensive project that brings together, among other things, a new plant with an annual production capacity of bleached short-fiber kraft pulp (BHKP) of up to 2.5 million tons.
According to the CEO of Empresas CMPC, Francisco Ruiz-Tagle, “the project, called Natureza, has an integral concept that brings together industrialization, road and port infrastructure, sustainable associative forestry, conservation and cultural promotion”.
The plant is to be built in the Rio Grande do Rio Grande do Sul municipality of Barra do Ribeiro, located 61 kilometers from Porto Alegre, the state capital, and 34 kilometers from CMPC's pulp mill in Guaíba.
The project would be located more than 15 kilometers from the urban center of Barra do Ribeiro and would involve an investment of US$ 4 billion for the new industrial unit, US$ 420 million in various road infrastructure works and US$ 150 million for the development of a new port terminal in Rio Grande, as well as an expansion of the Port of Pelotas. In addition, the construction phase of the project will create more than 12,000 jobs, primarily local.
CMPC is also submitting requests for permits for various monitoring activities to the Fundação Estadual de Proteção Ambiental Henrique Luis Roessler (FEPAM), the technical agency of the Rio Grande do Sul State Environmental Protection System, which are necessary to prepare the technical studies and environmental assessments.
This will enable CMPC's teams to carry out the technical studies and environmental assessments required for the final preparation of the industrial project, which will be submitted to CMPC's Board of Directors for decision in mid-2026. If approved, the works would be developed in a period of no more than three years.
CMPC has been operating since 2009 in the city of Guaíba, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, with a pulp production plant, also of the short-fiber bleached kraft type, from eucalyptus plantations. This unit now has a production capacity of approximately 2.4 million tons per year.