The Cuban state company Minera de Occidente will supply calcium carbonate and other mineral products to companies in Spain and Brazil.
This was explained in a meeting with international media by the company, the largest producer of calcium carbonate in the country, which added that it is also negotiating agreements with companies from the Dominican Republic and Mexico.
The expansion of this company, which has received several national recognitions, is part of the import substitution plans of Cuba, whose economy is going through a serious crisis, with problems of access to foreign currency and great foreign dependence.
«We have quality –because the mineral has an extreme quality–, we have high productivity, low cost and what we have is to improve the presentation and conquer the market. We are in that process now », he affirmed to EFE the person in charge of the Coco Peredo mine and plant, Rolando Tapanes.
Next July, the agreement begins with the Cuban-Spanish joint venture Winperas, in which the Spanish company Winkler Panamericana (Winpan) participates, by which Minera de Occidente commits to supply some 400 tons of calcium carbonate per month for three years.
The calcium carbonate will be marketed by Winperas in Cuba, which until now was selling this same component in the country, but made in Spain. This substitution of imports supposes to Cuba “four million dollars of savings” a year, according to Tapanes.
The agreement with a Brazilian company, for its part, involves the production of 4,000 tons of zeolites per year.
The Coco Peredo plant, which accumulates a state investment of 4 million Cuban pesos (CUP), extends next to the open-pit mine of the same name, about 50 kilometers from Havana and the Mariel special development zone, where settle their main clients.
The factory has an installed production capacity of 30,000 tons per year of retail products and 60,000 tons of larger diameter products.
“The investments allow us to enter the international market,” said Tapanes, who indicated that Minera de Occidente aspires to expand its export portfolio.
Minera de Occidente is a success story within a more complex sectoral panorama. If in the 1980s Cuba produced 6 million tons of cement a year, now the annual supply is barely one million, according to the Ministry of Mines and Energy.
Meanwhile, the cubic meters produced of aggregates, used mainly in construction, have gone from 17 million to six million in the same period.
Calcium carbonate is a chemical compound with multiple industrial applications, from the production of cement and glass, to the manufacture of hygiene and cleaning products, paints, ceramics and rubber.
