Brazilian iron ore miner CSN Mineração announces US$2.6bn capex

Iron ore miner CSN Mineração, a subsidiary of Brazilian steelmaker CSN, announced planned capex of 13.8bn reais (US$2.6bn) for 2023-27. 

"CSN as a whole is divided into five business units, steel, mining, cement, logistics and energy. Regarding the mining segment, our focus is on expansion," chairman Benjamin Steinbruch (pictured) said during a presentation for investors on Thursday. 

For 2023, the company said it expects "a balanced" performance for the iron ore segment due to the potential recovery in Chinese demand.

Iron ore prices have come under pressure due to the zero-COVID policy in China, where the main clients of Brazilian commodities are based.

With the investment in mining the company looks to increase its own production and the purchase of iron ore from third parties from 34Mt this year to 68Mt in 2027.

The main project is the Itabirito P15 mine, or Mina Casa de Pedra, in Minas Gerais state, with a startup estimated for 4Q25 and production capacity of 15Mt.

"We already have long-term financing available from Japanese banks of US$1.4bn per year for our P15 project and for all our projects we just want to look at long-term financing," said Steinbruch.

The company's main initiatives to expand iron ore production are:

CEMENT DIVISION

CSN is rosy about its cement division due to demand generated by infrastructure concessions and plans of president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to boost public investments in infrastructure.

The company expects the new government taking office January 1 will soon announce a plan to invest 40bn reais in infrastructure projects.

STEEL UNIT 

The conglomerate projects steel sales of 4.48-4.67Mt in 2023, compared with 5.1Mt projected for this year.

Planned capex for the steel unit is 4.4bn reais for next year, compared with 3bn reais in 2022.

IPOs 

According to Steinbruch, the company is evaluating IPOs for its cement, logistics and energy units.