the finnish company UPM still awaits authorization Ministry of Environment to put its second plant into operation cellulose in the country, located at Centennial Town and with a productive capacity of 2 million tons.
UPM had established the last days of March as the deadline for the start of activities of the Paso de los Toros plantwhich represented an investment of 2,700 million dollars to which are added works such as the terminal specialized in the Port of Montevideo.
However, the Ministry of the Environment still needs to grant the environmental authorization to operate, which in fact implies the green light to start the operation of the plant located on the Black riverreported Underlined.
The government refused to set a date for the arrival of that authorization and stressed that it is still within the established deadlines.
The sensitive point that Environment must analyze is the baseline with environmental references on the Negro River, where spillage from the UPM plant will be dumped. A not minor issue since it is the instrument that will allow monitoring the impact of production within the allowed environmental parameters.
The ministry and the authorities of the Finnish company will meet on Thursday of next week and there will be a new evaluation of the plant in Pueblo Centenario.
Added to the delay in obtaining the authorization is another stumbling block for UPM, which are the delays in completing the works on the central railway with which it hoped to move its production to the specialized terminal in the Port of Montevideo and which were postponed from May to October.
To overcome this problem, the company announced the temporary use of 200 daily trucks for the transfer of cellulose pulp, sodium hydroxide, sulfuric acid and fuel oil, through route 5. The vehicles will use semi-trailers with 30 ton capacity.
Source: Ambito
