F.L.Smidth & Co. wins DKK 550m contract in Brazil

The Brazilian cement producer Camargo Corrêa Cimentos has placed an order with F.L.Smidth & Co. A/S for a complete cement production line at a total value of DKK 550m (about EUR 74m).
This will be a greenfield plant with a capacity of 5,000 tonnes cement clinker per day. Situated near the town of Lavras in the state of Minas Gerais, some 350 km north of São Paulo, it is scheduled to be operational in two years' time. The project has been underway for two years and has been negotiated over the past six months by F.L.Smidth & Co.'s sales office in São Paulo against German and Japanese competition.

F.L.Smidth & Co., which belongs to the F.L.Smidth-Fuller Engineering Group, is to supply all the machinery and the necessary ancillary equipment including gear units, electrostatic precipitators, control systems and a packing plant. The contract also comprises civil design, training and supervision. The first mechanical supplies will commence in about twelve months. A large part of the machinery will be locally manufactured.

To be financed by the customer himself, partly in Danish kroner and partly in Brazilian reais, the order is included in F.L.Smidth & Co.'s projected order intake for 2000.

Camargo Corrêa Cimentos belongs to the Camargo Corrêa Group which is one of the biggest private groups in Brazil and consists of 21 companies with about 16,000 employees . Its present cement interests comprise three production plants with a total yearly capacity of 4.4m tonnes cement. The new production line will boost capacity to 6.4m tonnes, representing 15 per cent of Brazil's current cement consumption. F.L.Smidth & Co. has previously supplied two 1,500 tonnes per day clinker production lines to the Apiai and Bodoquena plants.

The Brazilian cement market is in a stable period of growth. Cement continues to be in demand for housing construction and infrastructural development throughout the country with a population of 168 million people. The annual cement consumption of about
40m tonnes or some 240 kg per capita is practically covered by the domestic industry's capacity. Brazil is therefore a large and important market for FLS which has been active there since 1924.

FLS Industries A/S
Corporate Public Relations