Cuban miner touts deals with Spanish, Brazilian firms
HAVANA, May 23 (NNN-EFE) — Cuba’s state-owned Minera de Occidente mining company announced agreements to supply Spanish and Brazilian firms with calcium carbonate and zeolites.
Starting in July, Winperas, a joint venture of Minera and Spain’s Winkler Panamericana, will receive 400 tons a month of calcium carbonate from Minera for distribution in Cuba.
Winperas has been selling Spanish-produced calcium carbonate in Cuba and the substitution of the Cuban-sourced mineral will save the island $4 million a year, Minera de Occidente executive Rolando Tapanes told Efe.
Calcium carbonate is used to make a wide range of products: from cement and glass to toothpaste, and also has important applications in water and waste treatment.
Cuba’s Communist government is pushing import substitution to cut down on expenditure amid a short of hard currency as the island’s already battered economy struggles to cope with supply woes and inflation.
Domestic output of cement has fallen from 6 million tons annually in the 1980s to barely a million tons a year now.
On another front, Minera de Occidente will supply 4,000 tons a year of zeolite – utilized in fertilizer and water treatment – to a company based in Brazil.
Minera’s Coco Peredo open-pit mine and processing plant some 50 km (30 mi) from Havana has capacity to produce 30,000 tons a year of small zeolite crystals and 60,000 tons annually of large crystals.
“Investments allow us to insert ourselves in the international market,” Tapanes said.
“We have quality … we have high productivity, low cost, and what we must do is improve the presentation and conquer the market. That is the process we are in now,” he told Efe. — NNN-EFE
