Brazil

Since 1990

Brazil is not a new market for DEMSA: it is where the company began. In 1990 it started importing manganese and iron ore from the Urucum mines in Corumbá, Mato Grosso do Sul, to supply the Argentine steel industry and replace imports that until then came from Australia and South Africa.

In January 1994 the representation agreement with Urucum Mineração —owned by Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, today Vale— was signed, with exclusivity to commercialise manganese and iron ore in Argentina. In 1995, barge convoy transport along the waterway was structured with ACBL and CVRD, growing from 100,000 to one million tonnes a year. In 2007 came the biodiesel plant at Terminal Puerto Rosario, together with Integrated Biodiesel Industries.

Today: the flow runs both ways

For three decades ore moved down from Brazil to Argentina. Today it also moves up: DEMSA exports bentonite and asphaltite to the Brazilian market for various industries, with ore from its own deposit in Neuquén.

The operation is supported by our own office in Rio de Janeiro, by the relationship with Brazilian port operators and by the waterway logistics experience — the same route the Urucum ore travelled.

Porto do Açu

The next step is CONDLOG, a 70-hectare logistics condominium within the premises of the Port of Açu, one of the largest private port complexes in the South Atlantic. It closes the loop: commercial presence, own ore and, now, logistics infrastructure on the Brazilian side.