“Of these seven plants that make up the entire complex, the six plants that will be completed by August will already start operating, and in September next year six plants in the Moton Steel Complex will actually start operating,” he said before the press.
Built with an investment of $546 million, this business covers an area of 42 hectares in the province of Santa Cruz, where concentration, pelletizing and direct reduction (DRI) plants, steelmaking and rolling mills, a power plant and auxiliary plants will be located. . .
Alvarado explained that the RDI site will be completed in February 2025, so the Moton Steel Complex will be 100 percent operational starting in March of that year.
He explained, “It is clear that we have (…) a delay in completing the work according to the timetable that was prepared, and this delay is due to the fact that unfortunately, and it is a general matter, especially here in the governorate, in 2020 work was paralyzed for a year and a half.” .
He added that another primary reason for the delay in completion of the work was the 36-day siege in Santa Cruz last year by Santa Cruz citizens and the permanent blockade on the Piocianica Highway.
“For this reason, there has also been a huge delay in concluding this work and that is why I say that we have to modernize and this modernization is also unable to be implemented for these reasons,” he lamented. .
Alvarado emphasized that despite these obstacles, the construction of the Moton Steel Complex in the municipality of Puerto Suarez is progressing and has so far reached about 85 percent progress.
Regarding equipment, he noted that 97 percent of all equipment that will be installed in the complex has already been manufactured.
After work was paralyzed by the de facto government of Jeanine Anez (2019-2020), construction work resumed in June 2021 on instructions from the President of Bolivia, Luis Arce, as part of a policy of industrialization with import substitution.
It is expected that the annual production of 200 thousand tons of steel in this complex will allow it to replace approximately 50 percent of the approximately 450 thousand tons imported annually from Argentina, Brazil and Peru.
ESM will produce and market corrugated steel and wire rods, the former being essential in construction and the latter serving as raw materials for by-products such as nuts, bolts and nails.
NPG/GBM
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