MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine pulp company plans a million tons plant in Uruguay

An Argentine corporation has joined a group of European and Japanese companies that are intent in turning Uruguay into a leading partner in the pulp and paper industry. Celulosa Argentina announced Wednesday it has plans to invest a billion US dollars to produce a million tons of pulp annually.

The announcement was done by Douglas Allbretch, CEO of the Tabebicuá group which owns Celulosa Argentina and this week signed the purchase of a 97% stake in Uruguay's main and oldest paper factory, Fabrica Nacional de Papel. Albretch said the plan is to have the pulp mill producing by mid 2009. If the Argentine Celulosa project goes ahead it would be the sixth company interested in such an undertaking in Uruguay. Foremost is Finland's Botnia with a 1.2 billion US dollars plant almost finished and which should begin production sometime before the end of the year. Spain's ENCE this week also began the process of complying with the environmental assessment studies to establish a pulp mill in Conchillas, a natural port along the River Plate with easy access to high seas lanes. The ENCE project involves 1.25 billion US dollars and would employ in the peak construction process over 5.000 workers. According to the official presentation from the company, once finished the ENCE plant will represent 2% of Uruguay's annual GDP, and 11% of the country's total exports. ENCE has plans to ship overseas all of its production. The other companies interested in opening mills in Uruguay are Finland-Sweden Stora Enso, one of the world's leading companies in the industry; Portucel from Portugal; International Paper from United States and the Nippon Paper Group. The five corporations have plans to export all of their production to the world's leading markets, Europe, China, India and United States. The pulp and paper industry is undergoing a strong expansion and one of the continents which seems most attractive because of the abundance of forests and water is South America.