At 8.43 in the morning, two workers from the new plant of Cementos Artigas, in Minas, Lavalleja, They were discussing when they should pour the fresh mix into a 1 meter by 60 centimeter wooden box. The intention of the workers was that, hours later, the President of the Republic, Luis Lacalle Pouwould embed his right hand in the material and, thus, the new milling surface and dispatch of materials from the factory would be inaugurated.
Indeed, around 12:30 p.m. this Thursday, Lacalle complied and, in this way, Cementos Artigas —a company owned by Cementos Molins and Votorantim Cimentos— formally launched its new grinding plant and dispatch avant-garde at the foot of its hundred-year-old limestone deposit in Minas.
The development of this new area implied an investment of almost US$ 40 million and, with this initiative, the company represented the unification of manufacturing facilitieswhich until now consisted of a factory located in Montevideo and another located in the town in the capital of Lavalleja, 100 kilometers from the capital.
Cementos Artigas was founded in 1919 and over time it unified the production process, betting on decentralization. In this way, operations have gone concentrating on the inner city, from where, originally, only limestone was extracted. The company has a cement production capacity of about 670,000 tons per year.
Kindness Cementos Artigas
Another of the company’s focuses is the sustainability. In this sense, the Head of Operations of Cementos Artigas, Federico Gutiérrez, stated: “This new investment allows us to continue being the largest, most competitive cement company, but above all, the most sustainable in the country.”
“The new cement mill consumes up to 40% less energy than the previous one and by centralizing logistics in Minas, we will reduce our carbon dioxide emissions associated with freight. We continue to make products with the least carbon footprint of the country, hand in hand with this investment and the multiple circular economy programs that we have been developing for several years”, the executive developed.
Although the commitment of the largest cement player in Uruguay did not necessarily require an increase in its workforce, “the company made the decision to maintain all the jobs and even registered a small increase in employees,” he said. Gutiérrez in dialogue with Coffee & Business.
Anyway, the development of the new plant involved between 300 and 400 workers directly involved (especially builders) and indirect. This meant 700 thousand man hours applied in the construction of the project.
For his part, the Minister Paganini highlighted the company’s efforts to aim for sustainability and added: “All decentralizing impulses are welcome.”
“Throughout the last decades, the country has generated credibility, stability and long-term policies,” Lacalle Pou pointed out, underlining these qualities in the times of uncertainty that currently reigns in the world, which allow to generate and attract investmentsuch as the one carried out by Cementos Artigas —from national and foreign investors.
Kindness Cementos Artigas
The hierarch explained that this has generated a large volume of investments in recent years, both “big and small”, and indicated that A record number of projects presented to the Commission for the Application of the Investment Law (Comap) was registered during 2022.
The opening of the new plant took place after the president toured the factory with the authorities together with the Secretary of the Presidency, Álvaro Delgado; the Minister of Industry, Energy and Mining, Omar Paganini; that of Environment, Adrián Peña; that of Transport and Public Works, José Falero; the mayor of Lavalleja, Mario García, and the former mayor of that department, Adriana Peña.
